It seems most people have at least one loyalty card in their wallet. They're easy to use, but can be a bit hard to find.  Some shoppers, like Anselm Clarke, get so fed up with carrying their cards they just stop using them altogether.

"I have this one little case and way too many cards,” he says.  “And then it gets confusing and then I forget to pull them out. It’s not convenient to me.

Now a new free app called Stocard wants to make finding and using those cards more convenient.

It reads the bar codes of popular loyalty cards, then loads them right on to your smartphone. When you're ready to use them, open the app and scan the bar code.

“This would definitely help. It's a one stop shop basically,” says Clarke.

The app may be a good idea in theory, but when put into practice, CTV discovered not all retailers are equipped with scanners that can read the barcodes off the smartphones.

Shoppers Drug Mart and Canada Safeway say the companies are working to upgrade their scanners, but they won’t be in place for another year or two.

If a store cannot scan the barcode, the app provides the number retailers can then type in manually.

Stocard’s developers say the company, based in Germany, isn't selling or using any information stored on your cards.

"We know that's an area consumers are sensitive to, so we do not store personal information or track your purchases with Stocard, says the app’s co-founder and CEO David Handlos.

But Internet security expert at Seccuris Inc. Michael Legary says he's not so sure.

"They are not explaining what they're collecting or if they're liable or not for what they're doing with that information. As a consumer there are a lot of questions,” says Legary.

Still, that hasn't stopped about 100,000 Canadians from downloading the app in the first week since its launch in early June.

“It would be really useful for my husband because he can't find anything and he uses his phone all the time," says avid loyalty card user Jane Fox.

For now, the app is only available on iPhone and Android devices. Stocard developers say they're hoping to expand the app to other smartphones in the future.

For more information about the app: http://stocardapp.com/