We have all been there. Pondering the squandered minutes of our lives that we’ll never get back. Dear person in front of me, please find the right loyalty card and pay already!

It’s a system that’s been desperate for a redesign. The run-up to this moment was the coalition loyalty program launched by XEMA in 2015. One loyalty card served many stores and the points could be redeemed at all of the coalition stores as well. Problem was, consumers still needed a loyalty card as well as a payment method.

Luckily, the retail gods have heard the cries for simplicity and in a major effort, Visa and MasterCard have presented a state-of-the-art integrated network which makes all those other cards obsolete. From tomorrow, customers will accumulate store loyalty points when they pay with their credit or debit cards.

No additional loyalty card will be needed at the thousands of stores and service providers who have signed up. Just one swipe will allocate the spend to the customer’s profile on the database, automatically. The points can be used to claim rewards at any of the participating partners’ outlets, or online.

Expect wallets to shrink – physically that is – because consumers are embracing this new seamless shopping experience with open arms. Next stop? The same capability, but on your smartphone when mobile payments finally reach critical mass. After all this time, could it be that the key to successful customer rewards programs was simply, smart, non-schlep systems? And with that, the data floodgates opened.