EXCLUSIVE: Woolworths Rewards launching on Apple Pay

If we want to imagine a future where you no longer need your wallet, there’s a bunch of cards that need to be digitised first, and after your payment cards and drivers licence one key card for many is their Reward card/s – and our supermarkets know this best.

EFTM can reveal that Woolworths is testing their Rewards card in the Apple Pay platform with select staff members right now.

Woolworths would be a big name on the Apple Pay brand list, and the first loyalty card, joining some 40 odd Aussie Banks (Still no Westpac, NAB or Commonwealth)>

The significance here is not only the present but the future.

Woolworths might likely know how active Apple Pay is in their stores, either through monitoring or raw data, so their move to add the Woolworths Reward card is a sign of confidence in the Apple Digital Wallet.

However in the future the game gets really easy for users.  While not likely to be initially available in Australia, the Apple Pay wallet allows a single transaction with the checkout to both make a payment and earn the reward points.

So while at launch (EFTM understands this could happen within weeks), you will likely be required to present your phone when asked for your rewards card, then present it again to make the payment (if you are using a supported bank), down the track it’s entirely possible that presenting your Apple Pay supported device for payment with a Reward card also in the wallet will automatically earn you the reward points on offer.

It’s a big step forward for Apple Pay, and we expect Woolworths to make quite a big deal of this Digital Wallet when it launches.

Thanks for the tip Dan.