OCBC Bank and StarHub are jointly developing Singapore’s first loyalty alliance, which will allow Singaporean consumers to exchange, consolidate and redeem loyalty rewards earned from partners across industries.
Set to launch later this year, the Coalition Loyalty Programme aims to bring on board key players from ten industries – financial services, telecommunications, travel, insurance, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, grocery, petrol and transport.
The programme is as the next step of a joint ‘We Economy’ initiative by the two companies, according to a press statement.
Consumers will be able to utilise this first-of-its-kind cross-industry loyalty platform to accumulate, convert and utilise their rewards points and air miles across the different partners and merchants. It can be done easily and quickly via an online tracking dashboard.
The programme aims to help increase the redemption rate of consumers by consolidating their points to redeem the desired rewards.
The current average redemption rate of a typical standalone loyalty programme is 50-70 percent based on OCBC Bank’s estimates. This relatively low usage rate may be a result of consumers not having sufficient points to make a meaningful redemption, not being aware of the points expiry date or having forgotten to redeem the points.
With the online tracking dashboard, consumers will also be able to monitor the expiry dates of the loyalty points and be aware of the available points any time and the rewards to redeem.
OCBC Bank and StarHub are also in talks with more market leaders and will bring them into the programme progressively.
Today, OCBC Bank and StarHub customers can already start enjoying the benefits of exchanging their existing loyalty rewards through the respective websites.
OCBC Bank customers can choose to convert their OCBC$ and Voyage Miles into StarHub Rewards Points, and vice versa, to maximise use of their loyalty rewards.
“Consumers will now be able to get the maximum value out of each reward point," said Mr Desmond Tan, Head, Group Lifestyle Financing, OCBC Bank. "One of the key driving forces behind the creation of our ‘We Economy’ is to go beyond banking and leverage the strengths of partners across various industries. This Coalition Loyalty Programme is exactly that. We want to proactively create a community of engaged members, rather a run-of-the-mill loyalty programme.”
Mr Howie Lau, Chief Marketing Officer, StarHub, added, “In our increasingly collaborative world, we saw an opportunity to innovate in the loyalty and rewards space to serve our customers better. By deepening our strategic partnership with OCBC Bank and further breaking down the walls between industries, customers will be able to enjoy unparalleled flexibility in how they amass and utilise their points and miles, across programmes, partners and merchants.”