Square, PayPal, Google and others all seeking to be your new frictionless payment system, the one mobile wallet to rule them all. But I wonder if there isn’t a dark horse for the urban hospitality industry at least: Uber. They’ve got credit cards on file for a mobile, professional clientele and payments infrastructure to direct bill via Braintree (owned by PayPal). I’m thinking integration with restaurants and bars primarily with incentive being some sort of bundling, the equivalent of how a restaurant will validate your parking. Take an uber to hot bar across town and get 20% off your ride. Pay your tab via new uber payment app or with normal credit card (and uber can use a transaction API like Plaid to connect the card charge to the venue to the uber ride).

Currently uber runs local event promotions which require you to enter a discount code to save $10 on a ride to a specific conference or similar. Longerterm it’s interesting to consider ways that uber can use their customer knowledge and transportation relationship to not just manage point-to-point demand but direct it. If uber figures out lead gen models to drive entertainment and hospitality spend it could be just another way to generate revenue (or at least comarketing dollars) and create barriers to entry for Lyft, etc.

Just some rainy sunday conjecture. Thoughts?

Update: @JordanDodds informed me that Uber is already testing restaurant partnerships where diners get 5% off their bill for taking an uber to their meal.