How to Make Your Card Top-of-Wallet with the Rise in Buy Now, Pay Later

With the growing popularity of “buy now, pay later” options for consumers, financial institutions have had to shift their strategy to focus on offering a quality, holistic consumer experience in order to combat cardholders from seeking alternative credit and financial institution options. Keeping your financial institution’s card top-of-wallet and overall products and services top-of-mind is becoming increasingly difficult in today’s environment.   Driving cardholder engagement through a relevant loyalty and rewards program, in addition to providing outstanding service, helps to maintain cardholder engagement and solid, ongoing relationships. Our experts have developed four key strategies to support your financial institution to drive greater cardholder engagement to make your card and financial institution their primary choice when making purchase decisions in today’s ever changing market.

Offer Quality Return on Investment

Every card transaction that your cardholders make with your financial institution should reflect not only their spending habits and personal needs, but an investment into a reward and gratitude for their loyalty. Keeping your card as the primary card for recurring transactions, such as with “buy now pay later”, is the goal.  Offering cardholders with a customized and unique loyalty program provides positive gain in exchange for their spending, creating a mutually beneficial relationship. Whether it’s 1% cash back on all purchases or two points for every dollar spent that can all be exchanged for quality, customer-selected reward options.  Bonus point promotions that are targeted to specific transaction types, such as recurring buy now pay later installments, will incent your cardholder to use your card as the primary method of payment.  Continuing education and ongoing engagement with your cardholders encourages frequent card usage, driving greater transaction volumes and spend amounts, leading to increased overall portfolio revenue.

Market to Engage and Educate Cardholders

Engaging your cardholders does not stop at their welcome packet. It is vital for financial institutions to continually communicate with cardholders through marketing promotions and campaigns to bring awareness of program benefits and create interest in spending. Developing seasonal, monthly or quarterly promotions for bonus points or additional cash back reminds cardholders to make your card their primary choice, helping to increase loyalty, spend and transaction volume. Regularly rotating promotions throughout the year engages cardholders without wearing them down, while including educational and cross-sell information in marketing collateral to emphasize other ways they can earn more by spending using basic loyalty programs features.

Encourage Spend In Categories That Are Not “Buy Now, Pay Later” Capable

Many online “buy now, pay later” options are available for popular categories such as jewelry, clothing and large ticket purchases, but there are several categories that are not covered under a “buy now, pay later” umbrella. It is very important to capture the everyday spend from your cardholders.  One great example of this is in the fuel category. Many do not have the ability to finance fuel to pay for later, but when offering your cardholders the choice to earn rewards for fuel or receive discounts at the pump with their rewards-linked card, they will be more motivated to use your financial institution’s card. ampliFI clients have the ability to offer fuel discounts at participating gas stations in exchange for points when using their rewards card. 

Provide Cardholders With Instant Savings

When cardholders are using “buy now, pay later” methods, they are looking to defer the cost of their purchase over a period of time to minimize the financial impact at the time of purchase. As a financial institution, the best way to help drive cardholders to use your rewards card over alternative options is to offer an instant gratification reward when they make any purchase, any way, allowing them to use points to pay for their purchase almost immediately following the transaction. ampliFI’s Pay With Points product enables cardholders to use points they’ve already earned to “pay themselves back” through a specified statement credit applied to their account based on the quantity of points they have available and transaction total. The cardholder perceives this opportunity as great value because it offers the same gratification similar to getting a discount on a purchase based on points covering the purchase cost. The branded alerts and messaging sent to the consumer are also another marketing touch point and a thank you to the cardholder for using your financial institution’s card.

By keeping your cardholders engaged with these key strategies, you will keep your brand top-of-mind, leading to keeping your financial institution’s card top-of-wallet. 

Interested in offering quality reward options to maximize your cardholder engagement and drive spend? Talk to one of our loyalty experts to better understand how our holistic and custom loyalty solutions can help your financial institution, or visit our website to learn more about real-time rewards.