Recent holiday shopping data revealed a structural shift in consumer financial behaviour: rewards and loyalty programs are no longer viewed as add-on perks. Many consumers today instead actively treat rewards as an essential, year-round budgeting tool to offset continued high prices. For retail banks and fintechs, this means it’s time to rethink loyalty programs, transitioning them from a marketing layer into financial infrastructure.
The proactive value-optimiser persona
Consumers are redefining what “value” means. Deloitte reports that four in ten Americans now exhibit deal-driven, cost-conscious, or trade-down behaviours across industries, including groceries and travel. And it turns out value-maximising strategies are not limited to financially struggling households.
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This points to consumers no longer just passively accruing amorphous points. Instead, they are proactively using rewards as both a spending currency and to “reimburse” themselves. Effectively, rewards act as an additional payment tender which consumers consider in their everyday spending strategies to help combat continued higher prices.
The demand for checkout visibility
Bank loyalty programs have typically followed a familiar, albeit extended, rhythm: consumers earn points on credit card purchases and redeem them months later. However, while consumers may be excited about signing up for loyalty or rewards programs, they can quickly become overwhelmed. According to the 2025 Bond Loyalty Report, consumers are enrolled in roughly 16–17 loyalty programs (on average) but actively engage with fewer than half – typically around 7–8 at any given time.
Because of how online retailers have optimised their checkout flows for speed and reduced friction, consumers now have these same expectations of financial institutions. So if a bank’s rewards program feels opaque or makes customers alter their behaviours just to participate, it can lose relevance entirely. Customers now demand real-time transparency into their rewards balances, simpler redemption options, and immediate value from their earned rewards when shopping online.
Operationalising rewards as financial infrastructure
To satisfy consumers’ high expectations for speed, clarity, and value, banks and fintechs must rethink their roles. They can no longer act merely as owners of rewards systems that only live in the bank’s walled garden. Instead, banks and issuers should think about how they can add frictionless value in existing behaviors instead of trying to force them to develop new habits. For example, most customers shop online fairly frequently; one way to drive more engagement and deliver customer value as the customer is shopping is through helpful embedded savings tools and value-adds seamlessly inserted into existing behaviours.
As noted by Keynova’s 2025 Mobile Credit Card Scorecard, leading financial institutions are already building out digital shopping tools to facilitate the delivery of useful savings. Programs like Capital One Shopping and Citi Shop (a Wildfire partner) automatically serve coupon savings and cashback opportunities at merchant websites right as customers shop online. These platforms serve as real-time savings amplifiers, often offering “stackable rewards” that allow shoppers to earn merchant-funded rewards, plus, if they’re cardholders, to earn cashback from their card as well.
Another tactic that complements coupon and cashback tools which deliver savings during the shopping journey is shopping portals. Banks can deploy these portals inside their existing mobile apps and online accounts, offering a trusted, bank-branded starting point for consumers to act on rich offers from their favorite merchants.
These tools allow banks to embed themselves natively and offer value during the consumer’s digital shopping journey, while also associating the perception of value to the bank brand.
The agentic future of rewards
Delivering real-time checkout value is critical preparation for a near-future scenario where intelligent AI agents actually execute transactions. AI agents will not optimise payment methods for habit or brand loyalty. Instead, they will simply “run the numbers” instantly to find the best immediate value for the consumer. The next step could be a scenario where merchants, or even financial institutions/card issuers, bid to be the most attractive payment option by funding instant rebates, rewards, or financing, embedded directly into the agent transaction.
To prepare for this shift, banks must build smart credentials that convert rewards into real-time financial value, automatically providing the best options for the AI agent to select.
Conclusion
As financial pressures and uncertainty continue, companies must shift to treating rewards as strategic financial infrastructure. Embedding real-time value visibility and seamless access directly into existing customer experiences can help retail banks transition rewards from a standalone feature into an everyday, functional layer guiding how consumers make their financial decisions.
Shawn Conahan, Chief Revenue Officer, Wildfire Systems
