Paymount Binding Payment Account and card-linked offers

The French start-up Paymount relies on a cash-back offer to boost their bank-free payment account, SoShop.Club. This FinTech draws inspiration from prior, successful Card-Linked Offers (CLO) and highlight a differentiating approach to challenge services such as Compte-Nickel, C-zam and Morning.

SoShop.Club accounts have been proposed since September 2017 through partnerships with some tobacconists. They come along a Mastercard card and dedicated mobile app, for 19.90 euros.

By way of standing out on an already crowded French market, Paymount proposes cash-back offers (6.5% on average) for purchases made with SoShop.Club cards at partner retail locations. These CLOs have been negotiated by a company focusing on customer loyalty, Plebicom, who already managed agreements with 2,500 merchants. Paymount intends to expand this network and eventually set direct links with some merchants, too.

Paymount also relies on the “viral” notion of sponsorship, with newsagents as first sponsor. Sponsored people can make other users earn discounts: 10% reduction, and 4% on purchases made by the sponsored party’s own sponsored people. As business facilitators, Paymount and Plebicom charge a per transaction fee.

Comments – Another way to promote a bank-free payment account

Paymount chooses a community-oriented approach to boost their offer. This start-up will keep on working on this notion as they also want to allow sponsors to give thank you presents to their sponsored friends, for instance. By way of reaching out for more users, they are planning to integrate SoShop with Apple Pay. This viral approach might lead them to win 150,000 to 200,000 customers by the end of 2018. So far, they only attracted 600 customers, including 50% daily users for their SoShop card.

The business model they selected for this account can be compared to Compte-Nickel offer (whose success was tremendous until they were bought out by BNP Paribas in 2017), and still stands out through an innovative approach to increasing their customer bases.

Cash-back offers are at the heart of other program, including LCL Avantage +, which is also managed by Plebicom. According to the figures released in the end of 2017 by this bank, their results are quite encouraging, as their offer seems to have appealed to roughly one million customers. Card-Linked Offers are gaining momentum in France, as services such as Izicap have also been unveiled.