Reward, Visa Expand Loyalty Partnership In Europe

Visa

Reward, the European bank customer engagement firm, is expanding its partnership with Visa to provide loyalty programs across Europe, according to a press release.

Reward intends to build on its successful U.K. project, in which it provides customer engagement services and content for numerous U.K. client programs for Visa, which contain rewards and work with several big retailers. The deals come by way of personal card linked offers (PCLO).

The release says the expansion will now reach around 250 million European Visa customers and will launch first in the Republic of Ireland later this year.

Reward Founder and Chief Executive Gavin Dein said the company has made strides in recent years in its algorithm work, using it to help predict trends.

“In the last few years, we’ve made huge investments in anonymising, cleansing and aggregating transactional data so that our advanced algorithms can predict where consumers are likely to shop next,” he said, according to the release. “This combined with Visa’s ability to promote these offers on a one-to-one basis, enables us to give consumers access to offers from the world’s largest retailers.”

Visa Executive Director Kevin Akerman said the partnership was a fruitful one because of its potential to help people spend their money the way they want.

“With Reward’s extensive retail network and tailored content, Visa cardholders can get access to relevant and personalised offers to spend and save at the retailers they prefer,” Akerman said, according to the release. “In partnership with our issuing banks, we are delighted to continue working with Reward to bring tailored offers to our customers across Europe so they can save when they spend with their Visa card.”

Visa’s second quarter results saw sluggish consumer spending due to the pandemic keeping people away from traditional shopping, although there were increases in contactless spending and online card transactions.