A new report from Aite Group, LLC, based on an online survey of 500 consumers conducted in January 2008, provides an overview of consumer participation in financial institutions’ and merchants’ rewards programs, their attitudes toward rewards and their level of interest in traditional and emerging reward programs.
Rewards are an increasingly critical aspect of how financial institutions and merchants compete for consumer business. While the majority of cardholders – 62% – are either non-participants, inactive or, at best, passive participants, rewards programs shape the behaviors of a significant 38% of the US population.
“Unless litigation or regulation curtails card networks’ ability to set interchange, financial institutions are very much likely to remain in the driver’s seat with their rewards programs in the coming years. Merchants should see the upside in this situation, and partner with financial institutions and card networks to take advantage of their analytics and marketing firepower,” says Gwenn Bzard, research director with Aite Group and co-author of this report.