These new rewards/loyalty initiatives are supported by a new crop of loyalty vendors offering financial institutions, and their merchant partners, the ability to parse bank customer transactional data to craft customized rewards across a spectrum of deposit products.
These services will change the competitive landscape of the retail banking industry. By year end 2010, Mercator Advisory Group predicts that 360º relationship-based loyalty programs will be the New Normal within the banking industry and that merchant funded co-branding, deposit account-based rewards programs and promotion individuation will become the hallmarks of these programs.