Aussie consumers are not impressed with their consumer rewards programs. Wallets are ripping at the seams with rewards cards that don't mean much to anyone. An emerging standard in loyalty programs may break this trend in a move away from proprietary rewards programs to a single card combining multiple rewards. Stated otherwise, many loyalty schemes from different merchants rolled into one.

In developing their all-in-one rewards solution, Sydney based business MazeCard has sourced inspiration from your run-of-the-mill credit card. In the early days, each merchant would offer their own store credit to their customers. A customer would be lucky to get a credit. Then in 1950, the first combined credit network - Diners Club - surfaced. Drawing parallels to the upbringing of common credit scheme, a loyalty program is akin to a store credit - it has been begging for an overhaul. And finally this has happened.

MazeCard is an an electronic mesh that joins one card to every loyalty account that a customer is a part of. A card holder can turn up at any participating boutique, nail clinic, whitegoods store or take-away, present their MazeCard and immediately sign up to the store's loyalty offering and not fill out a single sign-up form. One card that's always in the shopper's wallet is trickier to misplace then a bunch of stamp cards that most of us has collected over the years. To draw an analogy, existing loyalty cards are like plain old cash. Losing a card implies waving goodbye to your hard-earned rewards. But after our rewards have been "digitised", losing a card is not the tragedy it used to be - the card can be replaced and all rewards restored.

Although the potential of this technology is game changing, the fundamental concepts are surprisingly straightforward. A card is issued to a shopper with a unique QR code imprinted on it. The QR code unmistakably identifies a customer in a centralised data repository hosted by MazeCard. The store owner reads the QR code printed on the shopper's card using a smartphone, which automatically credits their account with points. When enough points are accrued, they can be converted to rewards in the store.

Most shoppers are becoming increasingly worried with climate change and aware of environmental continuity. Based on their intrinsic reliance on paper or plastic, traditional rewards programs are about as sustainable as junk leaflets. A single card definitely solves the issue to a large extent, but the permanent solution would be to fully eliminate cards from our world. And as it happens, if you are one of the 12.2 million smartphone bearers in Australia, you may be positioned to give plastic final salute. MazeCard provides an app allowing you to display a "virtual" card on your phone, and have the merchant scan your phone instead.

This technology arrived at a crucial moment for owners of small and medium size businesses in Australia. If Dun and Bradstreets are anything to go by, in their latest Business Failures and Start-ups Analysis (January 2012), the amount of SMEs that went bankrupt over the last year has increased by 48%, with an average yearly growth in business defaults of 29% during the last 3 years. The quoted numbers speak for themselves; where small businesses were normally outgunned by huge chains and supermarkets, the emergence of online stores has added the proverbial fuel to the blaze. A consolidation of loyalty programs could see a long awaited return back in the direction of customer loyalty and the fortification of the small business segment.