Amazon has decided to discontinue its mobile wallet beta app, launched six months ago on Amazon Appstore and Google Play, which allowed users to store and organise gift and loyalty cards, CNET has reported.

These cards would then become available as a barcode, QR code, text or image, enabling them to be redeemed at the point-of-sale.

Amazon has told users that they can still use unspent gift cards but they will have to keep track of the balance manually.

“We have learned a great deal from the introduction of the Wallet and will look for ways to apply these lessons in the future,” spokesperson Tom Cook commented.

The app, which came pre-installed on Fire smartphones, also let consumers check the balance of their stored gifts at a wide range of supported merchants.

Last September, Iain Kennedy, the Amazon executive in charge of product management for new payments services – including the mobile wallet app – left the online retailer for Microsoft.

A month after that, Amazon pulled the plug on WebPay, its P2P e-mail payments system.

However, Amazon Local Register, a card reader and free mobile app that enables local businesses to accept credit and debit cards on a smartphone or tablet, which launched in August, is still around.