A payment connects a customer, their financial institution and a retailer. Yet the customer relationships on either side are often considered separately. Banks and payments providers want to deepen engagement beyond the transaction. Retailers want to understand what drives purchases and brings customers back. Both depend on a better understanding of how people spend.
Retail media has helped close the measurement gap, growing beyond $200 billion globally by connecting marketing with purchases within retailers’ own environments. But that view has boundaries. It rarely extends to how customers spend elsewhere or whether they are moving to a competitor.
Our September 2026 research highlighted this gap. Understanding consumer behaviour was the obstacle retailers cited most often to marketing performance, while more than a quarter said their strongest unmet need was clearer evidence of outcomes and incremental ROI.
Banks and payments providers bring a broader perspective. The opportunity lies in turning that understanding into experiences customers value and growth businesses can measure.
Where banking intelligence meets commerce
Banks have trusted customer relationships and permissioned transaction data. The intelligence derived from that data provides a broader understanding of spending over time, across retailers, brands and categories.
That perspective matters because customer behaviour rarely fits within the boundaries of one business. A change in spending with one retailer may reflect a shift to a competitor, a new priority or a wider change in household spending. Understanding that context helps businesses make better decisions.
At Reward, we have spent more than a decade working where banking meets commerce. We operate across more than 15 markets, reach over 14 million customers and work with more than 30 financial institutions and payments providers, including Visa, Mastercard, NatWest, Mashreq and Zilch. We analyse more than 100 billion transactions, representing around $140 billion in annual spend.
Our purpose is to use that intelligence to make everyday spending more valuable, connecting consumers with relevant retail offers and rewards through the financial services they already use.
For merchants, transaction insight informs who to reach, with what offer, and where to invest. For consumers, it means offers that better reflect where they shop and what matters to them. Connecting engagement with transaction insight then allows us to see whether a customer made a purchase after receiving an offer.
This creates a learning loop grounded in actual spending, helping businesses understand the response and improve the next interaction.
From loyalty to a Finance Media Network
Banking rewards programmes provide the foundation for a broader opportunity across customer engagement, commerce media and consumer intelligence.
We call this evolution a Finance Media Network. It brings together financial institution distribution, customer intelligence and retail partnerships, with outcomes measured against actual spending.
For banks and payments providers, relevance in everyday life gives customers more reasons to engage and choose their card, supporting their ambition to become top of wallet. Merchants gain a channel to reach relevant customers and drive measurable sales. Consumers receive useful offers and rewards that help their spending go further.
These benefits depend on one another. Consumer value underpins the commercial opportunity. An offer must give someone a worthwhile reason to act if it is to build engagement, influence a purchase or encourage a return visit.
Intelligence as a growth lever
The implications extend beyond the next campaign. Understanding how demand shifts across customers, locations, categories and times of day helps businesses distinguish short-term fluctuations from more meaningful changes in behaviour.
Those insights can inform supply chains, product ranges, location planning, product development and strategic investment. A fuller understanding of customers becomes a resource for decisions across the business.
Rezolve Insights applies advanced analytics to these questions. We work with intelligence partners including Experian, Affinity Solutions and CACI, and support organisations such as Deliveroo, Nike, Asda and Domino’s. These applications show how purchasing insight can help businesses respond to changing demand and identify opportunities for growth.
An established foundation
Finance media’s development will depend on the ability to deliver consistently across different customer relationships and markets. Rewards programmes already connecting banks, retailers and consumers provide that foundation.
For more than a decade, we have powered NatWest’s flagship MyRewards programme, evolving the experience through transaction intelligence, digital engagement and relevant retail offers. Our new partnership with Mashreq, working alongside Visa to power its Everyday Cashback programme, demonstrates our growing international reach.
These are two examples of the programmes supporting our Finance Media Network. They bring together the experience gained through longstanding banking relationships and the opportunity to apply it in new markets.
A stronger connection between banking and commerce
Retail media demonstrated the value of connecting engagement with purchasing behaviour. Finance media can build on that by bringing a broader understanding of spending into the relationship between financial institutions, merchants and consumers.
Its progress should be judged by what that understanding delivers: greater everyday value for consumers, stronger customer relationships and measurable growth. That is what will give finance media a lasting role in banking and commerce.
