Mercury, a subsidiary of Vantiv since the Durango company’s purchase last year, is working to add merchants to its StoreCard program, a mobile loyalty program for customers.
Mercury, which processes credit-card payments, has about 300 merchants using the platform so far, company officials said. StoreCard essentially takes Mercury’s plastic gift cards, launched in 2004, and moves them into a mobile-payment platform with extra features.
“We strongly believe we’ll see a mobile-digital economy,” said Matt Taylor, president of integrated payments for Vantiv.
Mercury has about 40,000 merchants enrolled in gift-card programs, so only a small fraction are using StoreCard. Mercury is working to change that.
“Any merchant that sells a plastic gift card today is a StoreCard merchant target,” Taylor said.
StoreCard was launched last year. Some of the early testing for the StoreCard program was conducted at Durango Joe’s locations at 40 Town Plaza and 732 E. College Drive. Each Mercury employee was given a Durango Joe’s StoreCard to try out.
“We work pretty closely with Durango Joe’s,” said John Nail, Mercury’s senior product manager for stored value solutions. “They do a lot of our beta testing.”
The product has not yet been rolled out to the general public.
Mercury StoreCard offers cash-back rewards for customers. Customers may reload it with more money. The program also has shareable and customizable aspects.
“It’s great for our customers who are a little more tech-savvy to let them use their phones to pay,” said Durango Joe’s owner Joe Lloyd.
It’s meant to be usable with Apple Passbook – a program installed on newer iPhones and other mobile platforms. As with other, similar technologies, StoreCard places a big bet that consumers are willing to adopt paying with their phones instead of a card or cash.
“We’re really making mobile relevant for the merchant – especially since the customer is headed that way,” Nail said.
For merchants, StoreCard comes with unlimited free transactions.
StoreCard allows merchants to “microbrand,” Taylor said. It’s meant to appeal to Mercury’s typical merchant – small retailers, restaurants and coffee shops.
“Differentiation on Main Street is hard to do,” Taylor said. “This gives them a tool to do it.”
Mercury was acquired by Cincinnati-based Vantiv in May for $1.65 billion. Taylor, who was CEO of Mercury, became president of integrated payments.
cslothower@durangoherald.com
