Village Gamer

PC Financial and TD have announced Ugo™, Canada’s first open mobile wallet to combine multiple payment and loyalty programs in one convenient and secure mobile solution. Canada’s largest retailer, Loblaw Companies Limited has joined as its first retail partner and also brings the PC Plus™ loyalty program into the wallet. Ugo™ will provide Canadians with a more convenient, value-add way to shop and transact with their favourite retailers by allowing users to replace cards from their physical wallet with a simple and secure mobile payment method that automatically links to loyalty programs.

“President’s Choice Financial is always seeking to make banking simple and better for our customers, and Ugo™ is another example of good banking for PC Financial® MasterCard® customers,” said Barry Columb, President of President’s Choice Financial. “It will allow them to easily and conveniently use their President’s Choice Financial® MasterCard®, while also earning and redeeming their PC® points in one single tap transaction at their favourite Loblaw or banner store locations.”

“We are very excited to be teaming up with PC Financial to develop Ugo™, the first collaboration of its kind between two Canadian banks. We’re also thrilled to be able to offer one of Canada’s most popular retail loyalty programs by welcoming Loblaw as our first retail partner,” said Teri Currie, Group Head, Direct Channels, Corporate Shared Services, Marketing and People Strategies, TD Bank Group. “Consumers carry their mobile phone everywhere they go; Ugo™ allows us to stay with them and is a natural extension of TD’s long history of delivering comfort and convenience to our customers.”

With Ugo™, consumers will be able to pay, earn and redeem loyalty points in a single tap using their smartphones. This innovative solution offers functionality that could ultimately replace the need to carry a physical wallet.

“Loblaw is always looking for new ways to improve the shopping experience in our stores and Ugo™ takes this to the next step by giving customers a faster, more convenient way to perform their everyday transactions,” said Vicente Trius, President of Loblaw Companies Limited.

Ugo™ will initially allow customers to load their TD Visa, President’s Choice Financial® MasterCard® and PC Plus™ cards into the wallet. PC® points can be redeemed at Loblaw and banner store locations. Ugo™ also plans to add more major partners, debit and gift card capabilities, loyalty programs and product offers in the future.

Ugo™ leverages existing near field communication (NFC) technology to process payments and will be available for use on Blackberry and Android NFC-enabled devices, with additional platforms planned for future releases. Initial Ugo™ features include:

• Ability to combine TD Visa and President’s Choice Financial® MasterCard® with PC® points in one open mobile wallet;
• Quick, single tap-and-go technology that provides the ability to pay and to earn and redeem loyalty points at point-of-sale;
• The security features found on customers’ existing credit cards and peace of mind with additional mobile wallet security features; and
• Ability to use Visa payWave® and MasterCard® Paypass™ where they are accepted globally.

Commercial availability of Ugo™ is slated for the spring of 2014.