Meniga & Íslandsbanki Partner to Deploy New Card-Linked Offer Platform Reaching More Than 30% of Households in Iceland

Iceland’s most innovative bank has replaced its traditional loyalty program with Meniga’s personalized card-linked offer solution

Copenhagen, Denmark – 26 JUNE 2017 – Today at Money2020, Meniga announces that Íslandsbanki, one of Iceland’s leading banks, has deployed Meniga’s Card Linked Offer (CLO) program to provide their digital banking customers with personalized and relevant discounts from local merchants.

Meniga’s CLO solution utilizes proprietary machine-learning algorithms to identify and forecast consumer spending behavior. Merchants get access to uniquely attractive customer segments that only contain consumers very likely to be interested in their products, consumers get highly relevant and deep discounts served in the context of digital banking, and banks turn costly loyalty programs into new revenue streams while at the same time vastly improving digital engagement.

The CLO program is available to all of Íslandsbanki’s customers and is estimated to reach more than 30% of households in Iceland. The scale makes the program particularly attractive to merchants. The program presently includes offers from a wide variety of businesses – from ready-made food outlets, clothing retail to fuel and travel-agencies, offering deep discounts up to 50%.

While the CLO market is relatively mature in the US, European banks are finally starting to pick up pace. With merchant deals served across Íslandsbanki’s digital platform as well as Meniga’s own B2C personal finance management application, this deployment is Europe’s first fully integrated multi-platform card-linked offer program – a great example of the kind of innovation post-PSD2 Europe is likely to deliver.

Bragi Fjalldal, Meniga’s CMO, comments: “As one Iceland’s most innovative businesses, it is an honour to partner with Íslandsbanki on this latest offering. In order to stay competitive, banks must innovate in their digital user experience as well as in their business model. With CLO, banks do both at the same time by delivering personalized, deep discounts to their customers and building a new source of revenue.”

He added: “Most leading European banks have CLO somewhere on their roadmap and they understand there is a clear first mover advantage in this space. With PSD2 around the corner, now is the time to make a move.”

Íslandsbanki is recognised for its innovation and customer satisfaction, and was among the very first banks in Europe to offer its customers a comprehensive a personal finance solution in 2009 when the bank became the first to deploy Meniga’s personal finance technology.

“The past 8 years Íslandsbanki has enjoyed an excellent partnership with Meniga. We truly value Meniga’s strive and focus to improve customer digital experience and we look forward to build on our relationship. With the introduction of CLO Íslandsbanki will offer superior value to its customers and retailers. It is a big step for Íslandsbanki to launch a cutting-edge CLO program, strengthening Íslandsbanki’s position in payments in an increasingly competitive market”, says Sveinbjorn S. Gretarsson, Head of Payments at Íslandsbanki.

Meniga has been operating a CLO program in its domestic market for three years, delivering globally-leading metrics in terms of user engagement and offer conversion.

Meniga is a global leader in white-label digital banking solutions. Its award-winning products enable the world’s largest financial institutions, such as Santander, Intesa, ING Direct, Commerzbank and mBank, to dramatically improve their online & mobile digital environment, enriching the user experience of over 50 million digital banking users acoss 20 countries. Meniga has developed a framework for next-generation digital banking around advanced data consolidation & enrichment, meaningful customer engagement and new revenue opportunities. Meniga’s offices are in London, Reykjavik and Stockholm. Meniga was awarded “Best of Show” at Finovate Europe, in 2011, 2013, and 2015 and was featured on Fintech50 in 2014, 2016 and 2017. Meniga was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in London, UK.

A leader in financial services in Iceland, Íslandsbanki is a universal bank with total assets of ISK 1,029bn and a 25% – 50% market share across all domestic business segments. Building on over 140 years of servicing key industries in Iceland, Íslandsbanki has developed specific expertise in tourism and the seafood, energy industries.

With a dedicated team of 900 employees and a vision of being #1 for service Íslandsbanki prides itself of being ranked first among banks in the Icelandic Customer Satisfaction Index for six out of seven years (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016). The Bank was voted ‘Best Bank in Iceland’ by Euromoney four years in a row (2013- 2016), by the Banker (2014 & 2016) and ‘Best Investment Bank in Iceland’ by Euromoney (2014).

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What is Card-Linked Marketing (CLM) / Card-Linked Offers (CLO)?

  • Card-Linked Marketing is data driven marketing that allows financial institutions to provide Card-Linked Offers (merchant funded offers) to their digital (online & mobile) customers as part of every-day personalised digital banking. Meniga’s advanced segmentation algorithms analyse customer transaction history, personal finance management engagement data, CRM information, demographics and other customer data to help deliver highly personalised and relevant offers to banking customers. Meniga‘s segmentation engine supports 4 types of segment-specific campaigns : Onboarding, Rescue, Uplift and Loyalty. Whether the goal of the campaign is to secure new customers or reward current ones, high quality customised campaigns can easily be created by merchants, directly through a dedicated merchant portal, to target the right customers through the banking customers preferred channel: Mobile app, online bank, emails, push notifications and for best practice integrated with Meniga’s personal finance activity feed. Offers are easy to use – customers simply make a purchase with their current banking cards and automatically receive cashback to their account .

History of Card-Linked Marketing (CLM) / Card-Linked Offers (CLO)

  • The early part of 2010 saw the rise of Card Linked Offers (CLOs) as a new loyalty marketing technique for brands, retailers and financial institutions, stemming from a rise in popularity of both mobile payment and coupons. It has been called the future of loyalty programs and advertising. It was popularised in the United States with banks such as Bank of America, Citibank, HSBC and many more implementing Card-Linked offers are part of their digital channels. Since then Card-Linked Offers have been launched in the United Kingdom with banks such as Santander, Lloyds and Halifax in the front-running. Today, the U.S. and U.K. continue to lead the wave in Card-Linked Offers within financial institutions and with many other countries such as France, Switzerland, Hong Kong and more in the process of implementing Card-Linked Offers as part of their digital channels.

What is value in Card-Linked Marketing (CLM) / Card-Linked Offers (CLO)?

  • Merchants: Card-Linked Marketing allows merchants like restaurants, grocery stores, clothing stores, travel agencies, gas stations and more to reach the right customers and stop wasting money on aimless marketing. Merchants know they are reaching the right consumers. Merchants can create and target the right customer segment and analyse the results in detail – optimising their marketing budget and performance tracking.
  • Customers: Customers receive highly relevant, deep-discount offers through their banks. Offers are linked to payment cards so customers need only activate the offers and shop using their cards as normal. The cashback discount will be automatically transferred to their bank account – helping them save on things they actually want and need and that are relevant to their life.
  • Banks: Card-Linked Marketing allows banks to strengthen their role as a trusted advisor to their customers. Banks get the opportunity to reconnect with their customers by connecting merchants (for example their business customers) with their retail customers through their online and mobile bank. This results in increased meaningful engagement for the banks as well as creates new revenue opportunities through loyalty programs.