Co-branded credit cards boost customer loyalty and enhance brand awareness. Advanzia's bespoke approach services a myriad of partners across Europe like Lufhansa Miles & More, Spartoo, Krombacher and Voi. Tilman Söffker, Advanzia's Head of Sales Business Partners, explains how these pan-European card programmes benefit both our business partners and cardholders.
What are co-branded cards?
Co-branded cards are essentially loyalty cards, offering rewards or incentives for purchases and allowing brand-loyal customers to enjoy specific advantages. Therefore, these cards are an asset for companies wanting to improve customer loyalty and brand awareness.
They involve a partnership between a brand, merchant or retailer (known as a business partner) and Advanzia Bank as the credit card issuer. While these credit cards are known as "co-branded", the business partner's brand is usually at the forefront with the Advanzia Bank brand in the background.
What branding options are available for business partners or retailers?
Advanzia issues personalised, premium credit cards in our business partners' branding. This ranges from a standard design gold card featuring our business partner's logo, to a fully branded "image card" in our partner's design of choice, entirely in line with their brand specifications.
The choice depends on our partners' preferences and their desired level of integration. We support standardised solutions where the logo card is a simple add-on to the customer journey, to deep integration where the business partner builds their customer-binding strategy around the card.
What are the main advantages of choosing Advanzia for personalised credit cards?
With over 16 years' experience in the area, and servicing more than 170 business partners in Europe, Advanzia has profound knowledge in building communities and brand awareness through co-branded credit cards. For partners with customer loyalty as their core business, a co-branded card is an ideal way to grow brand awareness and place their card at the top of the wallet. In addition, Advanzia offers pan-European solutions, enabling our business partners to implement card programmes across multiple geographical markets in Europe.
Customers are increasingly demanding a range of payment methods. Our cards' added features and functionalities like mobile payment through Apple Pay and Google Pay and secure two-factor authentication can enhance a business partner's competitiveness.
Advanzia's fast-to-market solution takes care of the entire payment process, bears the default risk of the credit card customers, and rewards the marketing effort through attractive revenue streams for business partners.
How do customers benefit from co-branded cards?
Co-branded cards are more than a payment solution. They are loyalty cards with a wide range of perks for cardholders – usually no annual fee, contactless payment worldwide, a free travel insurance package, and attractive loyalty benefits.
These customisable loyalty benefits can range from rewards to discounts and promotions. For example, cardholders can access membership deals and exclusive experiences, earn miles or points through their spending, or upgrade their existing bonus programmes.
Our cards also offer interest-free repayment and flexible financing options. In addition, our credit cards provide free worldwide ATM withdrawals and we do not charge foreign exchange fees, just to mention a few great advantages.
How is the co-branded credit card trend developing in Europe?
Interest in co-branded credit cards is growing in Europe, with more and more companies rolling out this strategy to enter new markets and strengthen their customer relationships. We also see increased interest in pan-European solutions as companies want to roll out their loyalty programmes across several markets in Europe.
At Advanzia we offer one dedicated account management team that designs and implements solutions tailored to our business partners' unique needs, in their markets of choice. This can be Germany, Luxembourg, France, Austria, Spain and Italy.
As we service more than 170 partners in 6 countries, Advanzia is the experienced choice to help companies seamlessly implement this fast-growing concept and rapidly deliver best-in-class solutions across multiple markets and European regions.
How can I learn more?
If you have any questions or want to find out how we can help, email partnerships@advanzia.com. Our Sales Team will be in touch to discuss the right option for you.