Virgin Money Australia & Ascenda unviel digital banking loyalty programme

By Leandra Monteiro

Ascenda, the global loyalty technology company, has recently unveiled the launch of Virgin Money Australia’s digital bank loyalty programme, which breaks new ground by extending across the entire banking experience and sets new global standards for customer engagement in consumer financial services.

To begin with, rewards will encompass card spend, transaction and savings accounts, as well as incentives for good financial management to help customers make their money go further. Home loans and other banking products will be added over time.

The new programme, which will be the centre of the Virgin Money Australia digital bank experience, is leading a continued global surge of brand investments in loyalty and rewards, exceeding USD 387 billion globally in 2020, according to data aggregated from Alliance Data and Euromonitor.

The programme introduces a transformational opportunity for challenger banks globally to grow revenue and market share by differentiating beyond their classic focus on low fees and easy user experience. Comparative to traditional banks, who are often overloaded by complex and costly legacy systems, these challengers are more technologically advanced and hence better placed to create a more holistic customer value proposition through personalised bank-wide rewards.

Mr. Kyle Armstrong, Ascenda’s CEO said, “We’re delighted to launch this innovative and holistic bank rewards program with Virgin Money Australia. It breaks new ground when it comes to bank-wide rewards and hyper-personalization, and sets a new benchmark for how leading consumer banks globally can think about customer engagement in the future.”

Mr. Greg Boyle, Virgin Money Australia CEO said, “Our loyalty program is a core value proposition of the new Virgin Money digital bank and represents a powerful tool to share real value with customers. Ascenda’s unique package of superior technology, plug-&-play content, merchant and card-linked offer capabilities and rapid implementation has truly made loyalty simple for Virgin Money.”