Glossary
What is apple wallet?
Apple Wallet is the app pre-installed on every iPhone that stores payment cards, boarding passes, tickets and loyalty cards, and it can display and update loyalty cards without any additional app.
For a small business, Apple Wallet is the single most valuable distribution channel for a loyalty card, because it is already on the customer's phone and requires no download. A card added to Apple Wallet can show progress towards a reward, appear automatically on the lock screen near the business location, and receive push updates whenever the balance changes.
Do customers need an Apple account to add a card?
No. Apple Wallet installs a card with no sign-in, no account creation and no password, which is the main reason wallet-based loyalty enrols so much better than an app.
This also makes it unusually privacy-preserving. The business learns nothing about the customer beyond the identifier it already collected, typically a phone number, and Apple does not hand over anything else.
Where does the card appear on an iPhone?
Loyalty cards are stored in the Wallet app below the customer's payment cards. If the business has configured location relevance, the card also surfaces on the lock screen when the customer is near the shop, which is the single most useful feature of the format.
That lock-screen appearance is matched on the device itself. The phone knows where the customer is; the business does not, and no location data is sent back.
What does a business need to issue Apple Wallet cards?
A card certificate issued by Apple in the business's name, plus software that signs each card with it and pushes updates afterwards. A loyalty platform provides both, which is why businesses use one rather than building against PassKit directly.
Provisioning the certificate typically takes one to three business days. After that, issuing a card to a customer takes seconds.
See also
- Wallet card: A wallet card is a digital card stored in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet (the same place people keep boarding passes, event tickets and payment cards) that can update itself remotely after it has been issued.
- Google Wallet: Google Wallet is the Android equivalent of Apple Wallet, storing payment methods, tickets and loyalty cards, and supporting the same kind of remotely updatable loyalty card.
- Card certificate: A card certificate is the cryptographic credential, issued in a business's name, that signs its wallet cards and proves to Apple or Google that the card is legitimate.
Further reading
How to add a loyalty card to Apple Wallet
A step-by-step guide for customers and business owners on getting a loyalty card into Apple Wallet, and what to do when the Add button does not appear.
Apple Wallet vs Google Wallet for loyalty cards
How the two wallet platforms differ for businesses issuing loyalty cards: updates, notifications, design limits and the practical gotchas.