Tag: mobile apps

Mobile wallets need to support loyalty programs to ensure success

Users of mobile wallets prefer their platforms to have loyalty rewards rather than just offering a way to make mobile payments. A new survey from CMB shows that consumers that plan to use mobile wallets in the future are more interested in the ones that are associated with loyalty programs, as such programs can offer more value to these mobile wallets. Such programs are meant to reward consumers for their loyalty to a certain brand or retailer.

Apple Pay will support loyalty cards in its next generation iteration

Recently Apple announced that the next generation of its mobile payments service, Apple Pay, will support the loyalty cards that users have. These loyalty cards are typically issued by retailers that want to ensure the highest level of customer retention. Loyalty rewards include discounts, access to special offers, and a wide range of other benefits that have come to be favored by consumers. The survey from CMB shows that consumers interested in mobile wallets, want these platforms to support loyalty programs.

44% of mobile wallet adopters want support for loyalty programs

According to the survey, 44% of potential mobile wallet adopters claimed that they wanted wallet-specific rewards programs as well as support for their existing loyalty cards. Other value added features, such as the ability to compare prices on a single platform, are less interesting to consumers that want to participate in mobile payments. Apple adding loyalty card support to Apple Pay may make this mobile payments service much more attractive than its competitors.

Mobile wallets offer convenient services that have become favored  among consumers

Mobile wallets serve many functions, from being able to store digital information provided by retailers to facilitating mobile payments. These platforms have become quite popular with consumers because of their convenient nature, but those interested in mobile wallets are beginning to expect much more from these platforms that simple support for mobile payments. As such, mobile wallets that offer the best services have established a strong position with consumers.

Researchers in Germany have now identified a common weakness in programming practices.

A research team in Germany has now stated that they have found a common poor programming practice that has left a flaw that could lead to a mobile security exposure that risks data breaches for millions of app users.

The method of authenticating users could potentially place the personal data of those individuals at risk.

The flaw in the programming could potentially expose the personal data of the users of the apps in which the developers used those mobile security practices. The reason is because of the method by which the app developers authenticate users during the data storage and retrieval processes with cloud databases, such as the Amazon Web Services and Parse at Facebook. The reasearchers are from the Darmstadt University of Technology and the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology.

The researchers identified the mobile security flaw by looking into 750,000 Google Play and Apple Store apps.

What the researchers found was that many of them use mobile authentication strategies by way of basic API-tokens, despite the fact that there are other methods readily available that are considered to be notably more secure.

This app development strategy is in direct opposition to the advice for best practices that has been issues by cloud storage providers. According to a statement made by Amazon Web Services, they have been advised of a “small number” of mobile app developers who have apps that hold AWS credentials. It said that it is their belief that those developers have “inadvertently embedded their own AWS credentials within their mobile applications, which could lead to unauthorized use of the developer’s AWS services and data.”

The statement also pointed out that AWS took the step to communicate directly with each of those developers in order to offer them guidance for the removal of their credentials from the apps. They also took the step to “encourage them to carefully examine their AWS resources for unauthorised activity and provide assistance as needed.”

The German team’s leader, Professor Eric Bodden said that this was a significant mobile security issue, as they were able to identify 56 million unprotected data sets.