Loyalty Programs Gain Traction as Fiserv Acquires CardFree

PYMNTS Intelligence has tracked a shift in consumer expectations as they navigate online and offline commerce: They expect rewards and personalized offers.

For enterprises, loyalty has become a tangible tool in driving repeat visits and deeper engagement across restaurants, hotels and beyond. Loyalty now stands as a battlefield where merchants compete for customers’ attention and dollars.

The trend has been on the upswing for some time.

The 2023 PYMNTS Intelligence report “Connected Dining: Consumers Like the Taste of Discount Meals” found that 51% of consumers said they used restaurant loyalty programs, up from 45% a year earlier. Participation spanned both quick-service (49%) and full-service (34%) formats.

More recently, PYMNTS Intelligence found that loyalty mechanics that deliver immediate, tangible value are resonating most with restaurant customers.

“Rethinking Rewards With a Loyalty Platform for the Debit Generation” from August revealed that young, debit-first consumers were receptive to reward models that don’t require credit products, shifting how restaurants should structure incentives.

Meanwhile, “Beyond Points and Perks: How Relevant Benefits Drive Cardholder Engagement” from January found that personalized, relevant offers, delivered at the point of payment or ordering, materially increased redemption and repeat visits for food service merchants.

PYMNTS Intelligence data for travel and lodging indicated that while guests valued rewards, they increasingly prized immediacy and clear, dollar-equivalent benefits when choosing where to book or stay. About half of consumers factored rewards into online travel bookings, signaling opportunities for hotels to make loyalty benefits more salient and directly actionable at booking.

Fiserv’s acquisition of CardFree, announced Thursday (Sept. 4), brings a new suite of loyalty and payment options tailored to restaurants. By integrating CardFree’s mobile ordering, pay and loyalty platform into Fiserv’s ecosystem, merchants can now embed seamless reward programs directly into ordering flows, reducing friction and deepening engagement.

CardFree’s technology, developed by the creators of the original Starbucks and Dunkin’ mobile apps, allows restaurants to offer integrated loyalty, rewarding customers automatically at checkout, whether they order in-venue, via kiosk or through delivery partnerships.

For hotel operators, loyalty is equally critical to guest retention and spend. The integration of CardFree into Fiserv can extend to lodging, enabling hotels to embed loyalty offers directly into guest interactions, whether ordering room service, checking out via kiosk or engaging with property management systems.

With third-party software integration capabilities, Fiserv now supports loyalty programs that travel across guest touch points, making each stay more rewarding and reinforcing brand preference in a competitive hospitality landscape.

Moreover, CardFree’s drive-thru and kiosk functionality also serves restaurants and hotels operating quick-service or grab-and-go models. Guests ordering through a drive-thru window or self-ordering kiosk can be rewarded in real time.

Through the deal, Fiserv’s Clover gains enhanced loyalty capabilities, from mobile pay-and-earn flows to kiosk-based redemption, housed within Clover and Commerce Hub.

“We are doing lots of things on the Clover platform across five or six major areas to drive a business operating platform, not a point of sale payments device … We’re just scratching the surface,” CEO Mike Lyons told analysts during Fiserv’s second-quarter 2025 earnings call July 23. “…There’s a whole bunch of work streams as you think about the next level of Clover and [also] the excitement around bringing more AI to Clover.”

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