A Plug-in From Synchrony Brings Store Cards to Retailers’ Shopping Apps

By John Stewart
@DTPaymentNews

With consumers spending more and more time on retailers’ shopping apps, it was only a matter of time before merchants with proprietary charge card programs began offering a digitized version of those cards within their apps. On Monday, that time arrived as store card processor Synchrony Financial announced its Synchrony Plug-in, which allows client retailers to offer a digital version of the private-label plastic Synchrony issues on their behalf.

“We feel we’re pretty much first in the industry” with this technology, Carol Juel, chief information officer at Synchrony, tells Digital Transactions News. “It’s geared to our clients who have a native [shopping] app.”

Synchrony, which developed the plug-in with New York City-based software house GPShopper, has been trying it out since late summer with four retail clients, including JCPenney and Dick’s Sporting Goods. So far, “SyPi,” as it is known for short, has attracted half a million unique visits and generated more than $10 million in sales across the four retail companies.

SyPi also allows merchants to incorporate their private-label reward programs as part of the mobile transaction by integrating with Synchrony’s offers engine, Juel says.

Native apps are attracting increasing interest among merchants. Some 78% of smart-phone users access a retail site through a mobile app, according to a statistic quoted by Synchrony. “The native application marketplace is growing,” says Juel. “Consumers are comfortable with that. That’s where the industry is going.”

The plug-in can be prepared and brought live for a specific client in a matter of a few weeks, says Florin Arghirescu, senior vice President of IT business relationships, innovation, and business development at Synchrony. “We sit side-by-side with our retail partners from conception to [quality assurance],” he says. “We’re very aware of resource constraints.”

There are no additional fees for the plug-in, Juel says, adding that Synchrony sees other benefits. “If [clients] are growing their sales, our receivables grow,” she says. “There’s a symbiotic relationship we have in this process.”