The Value of Turning Receipts Into Rewards in Real Time

Two key words for the payments landscape in 2024 include personalization and embedded. Banyan’s platform is helping merchants, banks and FinTechs navigate both.

“It is always important to start with the consumer and how they are living their lives,” Alpesh Chokshi, the newly appointed president of Banyan, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. “How is their life better, faster, cheaper, different because of the platform and the technology that exists?”

“That’s No. 1,” he said. “No. 2 is do these platforms and technologies meet bank-grade standards,” which is “new” for many FinTechs?

Banyan’s approach to personalization involves creating a seamless experience for consumers who opt into offers, and Chokshi highlighted the importance of privacy and security, citing Banyan’s founder, who came from the medical industry, where adherence to privacy laws is crucial.

Merchant-provided data from payment environments, built atop consumer consent, can provide tangible benefits, such as discounts, rewards and streamlined expense management, while allowing merchants and banks to use granular data to enhance their business strategies.

“As I look at the growth path, it’s about finding those consumer use cases that can scale up,” Chokshi explained. “We’re beyond proof of concepts and pilots.”

He touched on several real-world use cases, such as promotions for specific products and streamlined expense management for corporate travelers, explaining that Banyan’s ability to provide detailed insights without compromising consumer privacy positions it as a valuable tool for both merchants and issuers.

Solving for friction, saving people time, and saving consumers money aren’t features that are going out of style any time soon.

The Transformation Happening in the Payments Space

Chokshi, a longtime leader in the payments space who has held leadership positions at major institutions such as Citi, Visa and American Express, explained that his excitement about leading Banyan reflects the culmination of his extensive career in payments.

“SKU-level data [item-level detail] has been the holy grail in payments, and I believe Banyan has finally cracked that,” he said. “It’s a patented platform that makes it easy for both merchants and banks to use item-level data to grow their businesses, but in a way that is consumer-permissioned and offers a clear benefit to them.”

“As long as privacy and security are at the center, anything is possible,” Chokshi added.

As more enterprises implement digital transformation initiatives, receipt data is poised to bring about changes by uniting merchants, banks and commerce platforms to offer personalized and relevant experiences to consumers.

When it comes to payment ecosystem innovations, it isn’t just about the soundness of the technology, it’s also about the ability to scale without points of failure.

“It’s important to make sure we’re solving real-world problems for real-world people, and not just living in a land of PowerPoint or code,” Chokshi said.

Overcoming the Challenges of Real-Time Personalization

Increasingly, solutions are being built with data-first foundations honed on relevancy and real-time insights.

Dynamic applications of data are revolutionizing the opportunities inherent to transactions — increasingly, for both sides of the transaction as well as many network players.

Consumers want to get rewarded. And they want relevant rewards faster and easier.

“But how do you do it in a way that isn’t a broadcast of an offer, but a narrowcast, so that you’re not cannibalizing core sales?” Chokshi asked. “The consumer has to say yes, but the merchant has to provide the data, and the payment system is an enabler for that.”

When it comes to generative artificial intelligence, another innovation being powered by data, Chokshi acknowledged that it’s still early days but explained that he sees potential in using AI for private data within banks, networks and merchants.

“I see a lot of promise in [large language models] that are built for private data,” he said.

Looking ahead, the new Banyan president emphasized the significance of partnerships.

Banyan is aiming to collaborate with larger payments ecosystems. The focus is on creating clear and mutually beneficial partnerships that provide a compelling value proposition for consumers and ensure fair economics for all parties involved, Chokshi said.

“The overarching vision is to evolve Banyan into a network for the exchange and movement of commerce data, akin to payment networks,” he said.