Bye bye plastic: app stores loyalty cards on your mobile

MONTE CARLO, Monaco – I’m an avid shopper and I love getting a good deal as much as the next person. On the other hand, I hate having to carry dozens of loyalty cards in my (otherwise empty) wallet.

At WIMA in Monaco, I met Jean-Benoît Charreton, President of Snapp, who introduced me to a fantastic application called FidMe that I’m immediately going to start using on my shopping expeditions.

Here’s the deal: FidMe lets you carry all your loyalty cards on your mobile phone. You read the bar code on the loyalty card with your phone, and it’s stored in the app. It doesn’t require anything from the retailers that already have loyalty cards in place.

If small retailers wish to add their punch cards on FidMe, they can register their business on the service for free and print an NFC tag that customers can tap to get their rewards. If your phone doesn’t have NFC, you can alternatively scan the QR code.

If your loyalty card is missing from the list, you can suggest it to FidMe. What’s really interesting is that FidMe uses GPS to determine your current location and see what kind of reward cards available in your immediate surroundings. You may be able to get a stamp card without even going to the shop!

According to Jean-Benoît, FidMe is the only app that supports both large retailers’ loyalty cards as well as punch cards from smaller shops. It’s available across all of Nokia’s platforms (Windows Phone, Symbian, MeeGo and Series 40). More than one million people are currently using it with seven different languages in 80 countries.

I can’t wait for the day when I can start paying for my purchases with my mobile phone and get rid of all the plastic in my wallet! What about you? Let us know in the comments below!

UPDATE: The new FidMe version 3 for NFC-enabled Symbian smartphones is now available on Nokia Store.