Verizon Ventures, a subsidiary of US-based mobile carrier Verizon, has invested USD 400,000 in CardStar, a US developer of mobile applications for smartphones, online news outlet finance.yahoo.com reports, citing data provided by the Wall Street Journal.

CardStar intends to use the funds to merge traditional loyalty, reward and club programs with mobile technology in order to allow consumers to replace their physical club cards with digital replicas. CardStar has already developed a mobile app for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices that enables users to store their membership cards into a single digital repository.

Verizon’s investment follows a mobile contactless venture initiative established with AT&T and T-Mobile.