Lloyds Banking Group and Bink partner to create a new channel for retailers

By Joy Dumasia

Lloyds Banking Group has entered a strategic partnership with FinTech Bink. Together they will transform the way customers of the bank’s retail brands can connect with retailers and their reward and loyalty programmes. 

Bink’s technology links a customer’s payment cards to participating retailers’ loyalty and customer engagement programmes. This ensures that retailers identify and reward customers when they shop with their payment cards, giving a seamless user experience. 

Later this year, the companies are working to introduce the loyalty solution into Lloyds Banking Group’s award-winning digital channels for its retail banking customers. Once operational, retailers will connect their loyalty programmes to millions of potential customers. 

The key retailer benefits include: 

• Attracting and engaging millions of new customers and growing loyalty programme customers. 
• Ability to capture more customer transactions through loyalty schemes, helping better understand, shape and reward customer behaviour. 
• Build highly accurate customer insights that can shape business decisions. 
• Opportunity to enhance a retailer’s existing programme or a simple way to launch a new initiative for those who don’t have one. 
• Remove friction at customer checkout. 

Retailers already offering loyalty programmes through Bink include Harvey Nichols, Iceland, and Wasabi, with SquareMeal the latest to sign up and many more in the pipeline. 

The key customer benefits include: 

• Loyalty programmes automatically linked to payment cards means customers do not miss out on earning retailer loyalty points. 
• Ability to enrol in new loyalty schemes and check and redeem loyalty points with participating retailers in their mobile banking app. 
• Less hassle managing multiple loyalty cards and faster checkout at retailer tills. 

Lloyds Banking Group has also made an equity investment representing a minority stake in the FinTech. 

Mike Jordan, CEO Bink, said: “Our goal is to make it simpler and more rewarding for retailers and their customers to connect. Our technology allows loyalty programmes to evolve as consumers adopt new payment methods. This partnership adds real scale to our mission, and we are exceptionally excited. Through our partnership with Lloyds Banking Group, we will take our intuitive digital user experience that eradicates the need for physical loyalty cards to millions more customers. And we will continue to empower more retailers with our solution, which generates better and richer customer insights, enabling them to serve their customers better.” 

Philip Robinson, Lloyds Banking Group Payments Director, said: “We’re really excited about giving our customers easy access to their loyalty points and rewards through our partnership with Bink. Linking payment and loyalty cards together means customers can significantly reduce the amount of plastic in their wallets, and it’s simple to manage all of the schemes through the mobile app or internet banking.”