PITTSBURGH, Aug. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Sentral, LLC, a card-linked merchant rewards gateway for debit transactions, and SHAZAM, one of the nation's only member-owned and controlled debit network and payments providers, today announced the signing of a letter of intent whereby SHAZAM will utilize Sentral's RAMP platform for the provision of merchant rewards transactions to the growing card-linked offer marketplace. A card-link program offers rewards, discounts or cashback amounts automatically applied to consumer debit or credit cards when a purchase is made at a participating merchant.
This action represents a significant next step toward Sentral's goal of providing universal access to debit card transactions for publishers and program managers utilizing CLO technology. With SHAZAM, Sentral now has specific agreements and active integration projects with four of the eight US-based, branded debit point-of-sale networks, which operate outside the Mastercard and Visa networks.
"SHAZAM is a long-recognized leader in addressing areas where their member community financial institutions and cardholders can gain added value. SHAZAM's commitment to the CLO market and the goal of universal access to merchant rewards through debit transactions is essential to this partnership," said Steven VanFleet, President and CEO of Sentral.
"The Sentral platform provides CLO program managers access to the transaction information necessary to match merchant rewards within the CLO market for debit transactions that was previously unavailable," VanFleet said. "Development and certification projects with each of the committed debit networks are under way and will provide an efficient single integration to program access for this growing transaction base. It's projected that multiple networks and CLO program managers will be live in the second quarter."
"By partnering with Sentral and other U.S. networks, we're able to develop a single solution for delivering the information necessary to match merchant rewards with the use of debit cards," said Terry Dooley, EVP and CIO of SHAZAM. "This combined solution offers CLO program managers a single, integrated method to assign rewards to debit transactions, no matter which network a cardholder participates in, without reinventing the payments system."
"This type of industry collaboration brings scalable solutions to market quickly, helping CLO publishers bring value to SHAZAM's community financial institutions and other participating networks," Dooley said.
ABOUT SHAZAM
SHAZAM is a national member-owned debit network, processor and core provider. Founded in 1976, SHAZAM delivers choice and flexibility to community financial institutions throughout the U.S. and is a single-source provider of the following services: credit card, debit card, core, fraud, ATM, merchant, marketing, training, risk and ACH. Learn more at shazam.net, and follow @SHAZAMNetwork.
ABOUT SENTRAL
Sentral, LLC is working with debit networks to provide a single point of integration for CLO program providers, creating technical and operational efficiencies for both networks and CLO program providers and enabling the acceleration of support for debit cards in CLO programs. Sentral is a joint vision of, and is owned and operated by, Steven VanFleet and Wolfe, LLC. To learn more about the Sentral platform, visit http://www.sentralhub.com or email [email protected].
SOURCE Sentral
Share this article