Bill pay rewards improve consumer engagement

Linking rewards to important activities that increase engagement, reduces attrition and improves loyalty is a way to move past traditional barriers to adoption.

by: Tom Roberts

It’s a classic win-win scenario. Well-constructed rewards programs offer consumers tangible, money-in-their-pocket benefits while boosting loyalty and profitability. In a similar way, rewarding two repetitive behaviors together – direct deposit and use of bill pay – can help banks and credit unions own the primary account relationship.

Every financial institution wants to own a consumer’s primary banking account relationship – the household checking account from which most transactions are made. Historically, that wasn’t too difficult to accomplish … simply help a consumer set up direct payroll deposit at account opening and you had a good chance of achieving a degree of lasting primacy.

If you could get consumers to pay most of their bills online from that account, your financial institution’s position was nearly guaranteed. However, the increasing array of consumer options for accounts and bill payment has created a pitched battle to establish and hold this primary account position.

Financial institutions can drive and solidify this critical relationship by linking a rewards program to those same key repetitive behaviors that have been proven to drive loyalty and increase tenure: direct deposit and bill pay. Forward thinking banks and credit unions are expanding their rewards portfolio to include these behaviors with good success.

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