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grams. "When financial institutions graph different age
groups, millennials and boomers are the biggest arches,
The technology exists today to enable and their behaviors could not be more different," she said.
multiple financial institutions to accept "Millennials tend to be more responsive to targeted offers
and aggregate points. Consumers could from stores and brands than boomers or GenXers. And
GenZ behind them want to use rewards to give back to a
pool rewards from three credit cards for cause or pay down student loan debt."
greater buying power.
After 15 years of working in every facet of loyalty program
design, Hawkins would like to see loyalty and rewards
programs become interoperable and seamless. "Hotel
Sandy Travers, co-CEO and head of product and risk at points are typically redeemed for hotel stays but should
DigiPay Solutions Inc., traces her fascination with secure be transferable," she said. "Statement credit and cash-back
communications to her work with the U.S. Department of rewards are the most highly redeemed but can be a cum-
Defense. "San Diego is a big defense town; many wireless bersome process."
communications began in the military and evolved into
tech startups," she said. "Dealing with secure communi- Redeeming points for cash can feel more like paying a bill
cations for DoD companies led to my launching a tech- than getting a reward, she noted. It feels different than
focused search firm. My brain is always wired to look into cashing in points to get a free flight, which ties that re-
the future because that's what I have spent my career do- warding feeling to a specific card or airline. Hawkins re-
ing, working with smart people who taught me to think cently worked with a financial institution in a big college
differently." football town. "The bank tied their loyalty program to the
college team because so many consumers were fans," she
Merging old and new said. "Customers could use their points to get a signed
football jersey. This localized redemption option had nev-
Travers pointed out that bold, innovative technologies cre- er been done before and was highly successful."
ated long ago are finally achieving mainstream adoption.
"So much technology comes out of the military," she said. Thinking global, acting local
"Sony and Alcoa were experimenting with virtual reality
and encryption technologies 30 years ago." McClure sees a massive opportunity in cross-border pay-
ments. "Americans pay with Visa and Mastercard when
Travers is fascinated by the convergence of payments apps we travel around the world, but that isn't always how
and mobile wallets. Mobile wallets provide a secure, con- people in other countries prefer to pay," she said. "WeChat
venient way to pay because they consolidate loyalty, re- Pay is popular in Southeast Asia's cash-based economies;
wards and physical credit cards and use advanced tokeni- Europeans love their bank transfers. Part of my work is
zation and encryption to thwart fraud, she noted. around changing the paradigm of how people think about
payments."
After launching an ISO and fraud prevention platform,
she designed DigiPay, a dual-facing digital wallet that can People tend to think of innovative new technology as a
be used by both merchants and consumers. "I tend to be shiny new object, but it can also be about connecting dots
very laser-focused when bringing out a new product," she and helping merchants expand, McClure noted, adding
said. "I choose vertical partners to launch with – in this that peer-to-peer, real-time and cross-border payments are
case, a healthcare service provider." really about connecting dots. In Southeast Asia and Latin
America, numerous people are living cash-based lives.
Travers expects merchant adoption of the DigiPay mobile They may select a cash-based payment method when they
wallet to drive consumer adoption. She noted, for exam- check out online and then go to a bank, convenience store
ple, that when "ABC Healthcare" collects card-present pay- or pawn shop to pay with cash to complete their transac-
ment at the time of service, it can also direct patients to a tion and arrange for their goods to be shipped.
secure portal where they can set appointments and man-
age future payments. The DigiPay wallet's built-in market- "Not having a bank account has not been a roadblock to
place supports third-party mobile apps. An in-app pay- ecommerce in many parts of the world," McClure said.
ments feature enables home healthcare providers to create "Amazon has teamed with Western Union to enable con-
secondary income streams by selling exercise equipment sumers to pay with cash for millions of products. Users
and health and wellness products, Travers added. can select 'PayCode' when checking out on Amazon.com
and go to local Western Union agents to pay for their pur-
Bridging generational divides chases. As payments innovators, we invent many things,
but the most useful solutions are the ones that fit into peo-
Hawkins emphasized the need to understand consumer ple's lives."
preferences across diverse demographic groups, a critical
requirement when designing top-of-wallet loyalty pro-

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