Banks are taking the battle for millennial customers where it belongs: mobile.
Citibank and JPMorgan Chase users will now be able to link cards to PayPal via mobile, allowing customers of both banks to add cards before paying online and in-store via the PayPal mobile wallet, both banks announced today.
These new mobile capabilities also link the rewards program of both banks to the user’s PayPal account.
That means Chase customers can use their Ultimate Rewards points to pay via PayPal at the millions of merchants that support PayPal. It’s the same deal for Citi customers who have been hoarding their ThankYou rewards points.
“With PayPal’s long history of integration, they are the highest accepted payment method online, outside of a traditional credit card,” Jen Roberts, head of Chase Pay, told Bank Innovation. PayPal has about 200 million active account holders, according to company statements. “For us, it was about getting rapid adoption.”
Outside of rewards, this gives Chase and Citi customers more options for mobile payments, as it provides stronger links to PayPal for users of both banks. Additionally, PayPal will now be able to process payments on ChaseNet, the closed payment network operated by the bank.
Rewards are something of a staple tactic to try and gain new consumers, traditionally tied to card products. Both Citi and Chase have recently launched upgraded premium credit cards that came with thousands of reward points for consumers. Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card, which came with an unheard-of 100K-point signup bonus at launch, was so popular the bank ran out of the metal for the card’s design and had to issue temporary plastic cards.
The Sapphire Reserve, popular among high-spending millennials, is one of the cards that supports Ultimate Rewards and can be tied to PayPal for payment, said Roberts.
Both companies have also announced several upgrades to their mobile apps within the past year, including integration with P2P services or the newfound ability to dispute credit charges via mobile.
With fewer consumers carrying cash and with mobile banking usage growing (at least at Chase; Citi does not currently report its mobile numbers for reasons unknown), linking traditional rewards to mobile represents a much-needed shift to a more digital strategy.
Both Citi and Chase will launch these capabilities in 2018.