Payment / Loyalty
Card-Linked Loyalty.
A product connecting payment networks with loyalty programmes through partner integrations.
Context
Loyalty and payment have always sat next to each other and rarely worked as one product. Card-linked loyalty changes that: the moment a card is used, the customer's loyalty mechanic fires automatically — no scanning, no extra app, no checkout friction.
The project connected payment networks, loyalty programmes, and marketing platforms. Each integration needed to work for the customer and for the partners operating it.
The work mixed product, partnerships, and commercial strategy in equal parts. Technical decisions had to make sense to engineering teams on three sides of a deal, while the commercial model had to give every partner enough upside to ship.
Contribution
- Shaped the product strategy and commercial framing for card-linked loyalty.
- Led discovery and partnership work with payment, loyalty, and martech players to design a model that worked for all sides.
- Defined the integration patterns and product scope needed for a credible first ecosystem partner — not a generic platform.
- Connected the new product line to existing growth motions, so it expanded reach instead of competing for it.
- Built the early commercial logic: pricing, partner economics, and the playbook to repeat the motion.
Outcome
A product line designed for distribution through payment and loyalty partners, with an integration approach and commercial model for further partnerships.
Reflection
Ecosystem products are negotiated, not designed. The product brief lives in the partnership term sheet; the partnership lives in the integration spec. Treating the two as one document is what makes the work shippable.