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ZipLine, the provider of private-label debit payment services for convenience stores like Cumberland Farms, has been acquired by Professional Datasolutions Inc., a c-store software developer and services company.
Announced Thursday, the deal will enable Alpharetta, Ga.-based PDI to bundle ZipLine’s private-label debit and mobile-payment app with its Marketing Cloud Platform. That will afford merchants the ability to increase engagement with their loyalty-program members, PDI says.
ZipLine processes more than 6 million transactions monthly, PDI says. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
PDI says the addition of ZipLine’s payment gateway brings visibility to the customer experience from earning rewards to receiving offers and promotions to purchases in store and at the pump. Loyalty programs are used to incentivize consumers, says Cederick Johnson, PDI director of industry marketing and communications.
“Our industry relies on loyalty programs to incentivize consumers to adopt and use alternative payments (private label debit) and mobile payments at the pump,” Johnson says in an email to Digital Transactions News. “Furthermore, our customers are asking us to more tightly integrate payments and loyalty as they evolve their strategies to introduce self-checkout, order ahead, and delivery business models, which the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated.”
Johnson adds that the acquisition “will provide customers with a single, integrated mobile experience that combines ACH, loyalty and mobile payments, making PDI Marketing Cloud a digital commerce and marketing hub.”
PDI intends to integrate ZipLine’s technology and broaden the availability of its private-label debit card program to convenience retailers, petroleum wholesalers, and grocers. “This will increase customer engagement, build brand loyalty and enable them to make better decisions with data-driven insights,” Johnson says.
Portland, Maine-based ZipLine, formerly National Payment Card Association, got a boost in 2013 when it announced an integration with Verifone Systems Inc. (now Verifone Inc.) that enabled its PIN-debit card to be used at convenience stores with gas pumps using Verifone fuel controller systems. Westborough, Mass.-based Cumberland Farms Inc. was an early adopter. ZipLine enables consumers to connect a checking account to the private-label debit card. Many merchants, such as Cumberland Farms, discount fuel prices when the card is the payment method.
