VeriFone And Bilt Aim at a POS And Loyalty Play—Starting With Restaurants

Payments platforms like Block Inc.’s Square point-of-sale service have long sought to find ways to build customer loyalty for the merchants that use their point-of-sale technology, and now other major POS device makers are also looking to build business by building business for sellers that use their technology.

In the latest example, Verifone Systems Inc. said Thursday it’s Victa line of Android point-of-sale devices will incorporate marketing capabilities fueled by Bilt Technologies Inc., whose tech processes marketing data. Tapping the Bilt database will allow merchants to personalize checkouts and build loyalty among customers, Verifone says.

Examples of targeted merchants include restaurants and fitness centers, according to Verifone, which rolled out the Victa line a year ago. Indeed, the partners say they’ll start with “select restaurant groups,” and broaden the scope of the rollout over the course of the coming year.

The restaurant category has been hotly competitive for POS providers in recent years, with companies such as Toast, Lightspeed, Clover, TouchBistro, and SpotOn specializing in the vertical.

Bilt, which has historically processed for landlords seeking to collect rent but has broadened its focus recently, has sought to harness the loyalty and marketing potential that lies in the data it collects.

Now applied to the Victa devices, the ties between the two New York City-based companies will “embed loyalty, personalized experiences, and member identity directly into the payment experience,” Verifone says. In part, this result will stem from an extension of Bilt’s technology to Verifone POS tech installed at such venues as fitness clubs and restaurants, and will rely on the Verifone transaction gateway, the POS device maker says.

Much depends on Victa’s Android technology, which Verifone says will allow merchants to gather and process customer data at the point of sale “without additional hardware investment or changes to existing workflows.” In its essence, the technology is set up to bring payments and loyalty data together in a unified flow, according to Verifone.

The key to the new platform’s chances for success with merchants lies in what Verifone sees as its ability to expand to a wide variety of merchant categories beyond restaurants, the company says. That effort could well depend on how smoothly the technology can be set up, particularly in busy settings. “We’re enabling merchants to elevate customer engagement without adding hardware or disrupting existing workflows,” notes Verifone chief executive Himanshu Patel, in a statement.