Social network Foursquare, where users "check-in" to their physical location, has announced a partnership with credit card American Express to offer unique deals and discounts to shoppers in the UK.



Launched in the US last June, pparticipating outlets are identified through the social network, and then users trigger savings by handing their Amex credit card to the cashier.

Similar iniatives have already been employed by Google Offers on Android phones, as well as Facebook's Places Deals. Other apps such as Moneysupermarket, Vouchercloud and Myvouchercodes locate  nearby special offers via GPS data sent from the phone.

Whilst wireless payments, either on mobile or the touch of your card are being heralded as the next step, this scheme advocates the exclusive use of the Amex card.
VP of international social media strategy, Stacy Gratz, is confident that retailers believe in the scheme, having already secured offers with Tesco, House of Fraser, Primark and Nando's.

"We can go back to the merchant and give them information about the number of people that redeemed the offer and also the amounts that the card members were spending, so we can provide to them pretty rich data," she said.

Evan Cohen, chief operating officer at Foursquare, gave some insight into how users might access these deals.

"At Foursquare what we are trying to do is build a multi-faceted experience so that a user, who might be opening an app to see where their friends are or a recommendation of where to go next, might stumble upon a deal."