Starbucks today announced a new partnership with JP Morgan Chase to create a prepaid card that allows customers to earn Starbucks rewards points, called stars, every time they make a purchase with the card, even if they’re not at a Starbucks.
The Starbucks Rewards Prepaid Card from Chase, announced at Starbucks’ annual shareholders meeting today, will be available at the end of this year and will work at almost all retail locations that accept Visa as payment.
“We were sitting around thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if we all had a payment card that would enable you to earn Starbucks stars for every dollar spent using that card?” said Starbucks COO Kevin Johnson. “Now if this card were accepted virtually anywhere, this could become your primary card for shopping, for travel, for online spending.”
Every time customers use the new prepaid rewards card, they will automatically earn stars that are directly transferred into their Starbucks accounts. They can then spend those stars at Starbucks stores or online, redeeming them for rewards.
The prepaid card builds on an existing partnership between Starbucks and JP Morgan Chase, which began in October when Starbucks announced that Chase Commerce Solutions was replacing Square as its payment processor and that Starbucks stores would accept Chase Pay.
Customers can apply for the prepaid card through the Starbucks Mobile App or the Starbucks website. It can be reloaded with money at any time.
The card is part of Starbucks’ larger plan to “open up its digital ecosystem and expand payment options,” CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger said. The prepaid card will extend Starbucks’ existing loyalty program, in which Starbucks customers will be rewarded with 2 stars for every dollar spent in the store — a change in policy from the previous practice of rewarding customers based on number of visits. The program currently has more than 12 million members, up 1 million over the past quarter, she said.
Source: GeekWire, March 23, 2016, Madeline Vuong
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The same study — by The Center for Generational Kinetics and Global Cash Card — that produced the above findings also determined that the reason behind them is a distrust in banks, cited by 48 percent of millennials surveyed.
The study, "New Financial Reality: The Rise of Non-Traditional Wage Management," revealed that pay cards are viewed by this generation as a viable and beneficial solution to avoid traditional banking methods.
One-third of millennials — more than 29 million workers — found the concept of a paycard valuable; 64 percent said paycards should be offered by employers.
While choice of payment type was part of the appeal, pay cards were also identified as having a positive effect on financial habits.
Three-quarters of current users of pay cards described them as a tool that helps them save for retirement; roughly one-third of millennial workers — more than 18 million people — expect this would be the case if they received their wages on a pay card as well.
"The landscape of personal finance management, including pay, is shifting dramatically, and that change is being led by millennials," said Jason Dorsey, a researcher at the Center for Generational Kinetics. "In order to attract the best talent and meet the needs of this generation entering the workforce in record numbers, employers must embrace alternative payroll options."
Source: Mobile Payments Today, March 10, 2016
Study: The Center for Generational Kinetics and Global Cash Card
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Speaking at the UBS Global Consumer Conference Wednesday morning, McDonald’s USA president Mike Andres said that the program could be a big sales driver for the Oak Brook, Ill.-based burger giant.
“We’re working on a customer-designed loyalty program that we think will be as good as there is out there in the marketplace,” Andres said.
McDonald’s released its app last year, which in many markets has a beverage loyalty offer that gives customers a free McCafé beverage after they’ve purchased five. The app has been downloaded 7.5 million times, Andres said, exceeding the company’s expectations.
Yet Andres said that McDonald’s new loyalty program would be “more robust,” and would be linked to consumer purchases, based perhaps on the number of visits customers make to the chain’s restaurants every month. Customers would likely have a limited time to take advantage of whatever deals the company offers through the program.
Such a move would be consistent with McDonald’s oft-stated belief in recent months that it needs to use technology to communicate more directly with customers.
Andres noted, for instance, that a loyalty program could entice customers to come in after they’ve been absent for a while. McDonald’s could use information it has on those customers’ buying habits to do the convincing.
Continue reading at Nation's Restaurant News Online.
Written by Jonathan Maze, NRM.com.
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