Bink accelerates growth, offering payment linked loyalty® capabilities to global retailers and consumers

Expansion Fuelled by New Operations in the United States and South Africa; Strategic Partnerships with a Leading UK Bank, a South African Challenger Bank and Microsoft; and Key Leadership Appointments

Bink, the leader in Payment Linked Loyalty®, today announced that it is bringing its Payment Linked Loyalty offering to a global retail audience by launching operations in the United States and South Africa and forming strategic partnerships with a Tier One UK bank, a leading South African challenger bank and Microsoft.

At the same time, it is strengthening its commercial capabilities through new senior hires.

“We’re seeing increasing demand for our Payment Linked Loyalty offering because it helps solve longstanding retailer challenges, such as strengthening customer loyalty, enhancing the loyalty programme experience and driving membership acquisition,” said Lee Clarke, CEO and Co-Founder of Bink. “Based on this interest, we’re expanding Bink to the US and South Africa – two markets offering significant growth potential – with additional momentum delivered through new strategic partnerships and senior leaders.”

Geographic expansion

      Bink’s new US and South African operations address mounting frustration among consumers with the complexity of their loyalty programmes by enabling them to conveniently store, view and manage their loyalty cards on their phone – and, through Payment Linked Loyalty, link their everyday payment card to collect points automatically from select Bink Retail Partners.

Bink’s US operations are based in New York and San Francisco, and are led by David Meyers, a retail loyalty expert with 20 years of general management and sales leadership experience at companies such as InStream, GiftCertificates.com, Smartbox and Affinion Group.

Meanwhile, Bink’s South African business is being led by Sarette van den Heever, a seasoned financial services and commercial growth expert with 13 years’ experience in the financial services industry, and the former chief partnership officer of 22seven Digital, a financial technology firm owned by Old Mutual. Bink’s South African operations are based in Cape Town.

The focus for the US and South African teams will be on forming partnerships with leading national retailers, banks and financial institutions to create the infrastructure required to bring Payment Linked Loyalty to consumers.

Strategic partnerships

Bink has also announced three strategic partnerships that will significantly accelerate the adoption of Payment Linked Loyalty among retailers and consumers. These include:

• A leading UK bank– Bink is partnering with a leading UK bank to integrate Bink into its mobile banking solution and provide its customers with its Payment Linked Loyalty capability. This means that customers will be able to automatically collect loyalty points and rewards from participating retailers. Initially, Bink functionality will be available to a controlled group before being rolled out to the bank’s full customer base.
• A South African challenger bank– Bink has entered into a partnership with one of the largest financial services firms in South Africa. Payment Linked Loyalty will be integrated into its transactional proposition, bringing the Bink experience to South African consumers for the first time.
• Microsoft— Bink and Microsoft are partnering to co-sell Bink’s Payment Linked Loyalty solution to global retailers as a means to deliver personal, seamless and differentiated customer experiences. The partnership will provide a timely new offering in a highly competitive sector, underpinned with the use of Microsoft Azure, enabling Bink to build a truly scalable solution that meets the security and privacy needs of the retail sector today.

Senior leadership hires

In addition to David Meyers and Sarette van den Heever, Bink has added a number of seasoned practitioners to its senior leadership team. They include:

• Mike Jordan, Chief Operating Officer– Mike is a senior executive with over 23 years’ experience in the global payments industry and expertise in strategic partnerships and general management. Mike was formerly chief executive officer at Alpha Card and spent fifteen years at American Express in various senior leadership roles.
• Richard Evetts, General Counsel– With over 15 years of in-house experience in the consumer financial services industry, Richard has built and led large legal teams spanning commercial, regulatory, litigation and specialist areas, and has extensive experience in digital payment capabilities.  He was previously Head of Legal for the Consumer Card division of American Express and Head of the International Digital Legal Team.
• Nick Stone, Vice President of Engineering– Nick is a senior technologist with a 25-year track record in SMEs and large-scale enterprises. He has run global software development, operations and service teams that have designed, delivered and supported enterprise systems for the telecoms, finance, retail and hospitality sectors.
• Greg Watts, Marketing Director– With 18 years of industry experience spanning payments, retail and telecoms, Greg has held senior marketing and international market development roles at Dixons Carphone, Visa Europe, British Gas, Kerry Foods, Orange and T-Mobile.
• Rob Myerscough, Head of Finance– Rob has over 20 years’ experience in senior finance roles in large organisations such as American Express, Eastman Kodak and Cable & Wireless, and has served as the senior finance partner for a number of complex multi-national businesses.

 “We’re delighted to welcome these talented leaders, with their wealth of commercial experience and industry knowledge, to the company,” added Clarke. “Collectively, they will work together with our partners, to bring our Payment Linked Loyalty capability to global retailers and millions of consumers, and help accelerate the growth of Bink.”