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Open banking — a promised financial utopia where data flows freely, consumers reign supreme, and businesses can reduce their payment processing fees — but what use is this powerful innovation if you can’t get customers to actually adopt it?
While the concept is simple enough and the potential is clear, there’s still a bit of hesitation in the air around open banking and until this trust gap is bridged, businesses looking to use it to its full potential are facing a frustrating waiting game.
Fighting fear with the familiar
It’s not rocket science to understand that new can be scary, and handing over precious financial data to third-party apps is no small ask, which makes you think — how can we encourage consumers to give open banking a try when they’re wondering what they get out of it?
The answer is simple — by adding additional value to their experience and providing a sense of familiarity through the offer of a reward or incentive in the form of a well-trusted digital gift card that they can use at brands they love or even get a free dinner!
Everyone loves a freebie, right? I certainly do! And what better delivery mechanism than one that is already perfectly placed and well-nestled within a comfortable corner of a customer’s mind?
While open banking may be new and scary, digital gift cards are familiar and well-trusted, making them the ideal digital incentive to encourage consumers to tiptoe into a world they would otherwise rather turn a blind eye to.
Prioritising personalisation and unique storytelling
Beyond their tried and tested status, the power of digital gift cards also lies in their ability to tie into open banking’s broader strategic narrative — one where consumers can experience superior choice and freedom when making their online purchases.
Rather than simply offering a one-size-fits-all reward to customers at checkout, businesses using digital gift cards have the opportunity to personalise the rewards and incentives they offer either through the use of AI tools and customer analytics or through choice-based products like Tillo’s ChoiceLink — a single digital link that empowers consumers to choose where to redeem their reward at over 1,000 best-loved brands.
By bringing hyper-personalisation and choice into the mix, digital gift cards go from intriguing to irresistible, giving them the potential to dramatically increase the adoption of open banking at checkout and change consumer behaviour in favour of using open banking moving forward.
“Banked’s research has found that including an incentive at checkout has the ability to raise the adoption of Pay by Bank and its share of checkout by 130%.” Powerful!
Looking back to leap forward
So, while we may all be raring to embrace the future, let’s not forget to pause and consider how the familiar still has a role to play in helping us do just that, and as we march into the future of finance, it may just be the tried-and-true digital gift card that helps us bridge the gap to open banking and whatever’s next!
Jamie Challis is a senior business development manager at Tillo.