Today in the Connected Economy: Hopper, Sabre Renew Partnership

Today in the connected economy, travel software firm Sabre and online travel agency Hopper celebrate Valentine’s Day by renewing their 10-year old tech partnership, while i2c works with the FinTech KARTY to bring digital wallets to Qatar.

Also, Michelle Denogean, vice president of Modern Retail at CDK Global, talks about the changing face of car shopping, and PYMNTS unveils the CE100 Index.

Hopper Makes Sabre Its Primary Tech Partner in Expanded Partnership

Travel software and technology company Sabre Corporation and online travel agency Hopper have renewed and expanded their 10-year-old strategic technology partnership.

The three-year extension of the collaboration will make Sabre Hopper’s chief global distribution and technology partner, and the companies will work together to “further evolve the online travel marketplace and customer experience,” per the announcement..

“Sabre believed in our vision when Hopper was in its infancy and has continued to support us as our strategic retailing and distribution partner since our beginning,” said Fred Lalonde, CEO and co-founder of Hopper.

Auto Dealers Integrate Systems in Order to Improve Customer Experience

Inventory shortages have made automotive retail a seller’s market, but auto dealers are still focusing on improving the customer experience. With so many consumers routinely buying from Amazon online or in-store with Apple, they have come to expect that sort of experience when picking out a car.

“I think, in speaking to a lot of dealers personally, the reason why they’re looking at process is because they know that there’s still areas of their process that they need to fix in order to have that really stellar customer experience,” Michelle Denogean, vice president of Modern Retail at CDK Global, told PYMNTS.

CDK Global, which makes retail technology software for automotive dealers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), has heard from dealers that a major friction has been that they use numerous systems that don’t talk to each other.

Synctera Launches Community Bank-FinTech Partnership

Partnership banking platform Synctera has announced a collaboration between Lineage Bank and GoGetr, the first such arrangement to employ the company’s capabilities.

Synctera’s Bank Match program offers a platform, experiences and programs for FinTech builders to create products and facilitate partnerships between FinTechs and community banks.

Lineage Bank, based in Franklin, Tennessee, plans to enhance its technology offerings for local businesses and customers, while GoGetr’s savings app combines health and wealth.

“This news is a great first step for Synctera and our partners and, ultimately, one I know will help people enter the financial ecosystem more easily than ever before,” Synctera CEO Peter Hazlehurst said. “Most banks and FinTechs I’ve worked with have incredible ideas for changing the world, but have a tough time getting connected with one another to start them.”

i2C, Qatar’s KARTY Form Digital Wallet Partnership

Digital payment firm i2c is working with FinTech KARTY to create a digital-first prepaid mobile wallet for customers in Qatar, where KARTY is based.

“Leveraging i2c’s global payments platform, KARTY’s mobile wallet will provide Visa-branded digital cards, enabling instant, cashless P2P transactions on the Visa network,” the companies said in a news release.

“The mobile wallet will also feature data-backed financial management tools to empower users to master budgeting while gaining transparency into their spending habits across a range of categories (groceries, transportation, health care and more).”

Indexes Offer Framework for Tracking Connected Economy, Other Macro Investment Themes

Picking Wall Street’s winners and losers has never been simple, especially when it comes to handicapping trends and triumphs in the tech world.

Speaking to PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, Amias Gerety, partner at QED Investors, said indices offer useful frameworks to track the direction of a group of stocks related to an investment thesis — the larger themes that evolve over decades, such as the emergence of cryptocurrencies or environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards — minus the vagaries and risks that come with attempting to identify individual winners.

The conversation arrived as  PYMNTS launched the CE100 Index, a new equity Index to monitor the digital transformation and the growth of the connected economy.

PYMNTS Launches The CE100 Index – A New Equity Index That Tracks The Digital Transformation

The last 12 years have seen the pace of digital innovations accelerate in such a way that it’s led to a digital-first way of shopping, paying and living, which we call the ConnectedEconomy.

That’s why PYMNTS has launched introduced the CE100 Index, a new benchmark designed to track the transformation and growth of the connected economy. We set out to identify the 100 companies that play the greatest role in driving the global economy’s transformation to a digital-first society, where almost every activity — shopping, banking, traveling, dining, socializing — is performed with the help of connected devices.

Our research is the fruit of an endeavor that began in April 2020, drawing from interviews with hundreds of C-suite executives and tens of thousands of consumers, which we’ve used to provide a never-before-seen look at the key influencers of the ConnectedEconomy and their role in shaping consumers’ lives.