First National Bank and Pick n Pay will next month extend their eBucks rewards programme partnership to a broader segment of FNB’s customer portfolio.
Having kicked off in a pilot phase last November with FNB’s private banking clients, the wider deployment will see the programme growing from the current 1.4 million customers to the full contingent over 6.4 million registered eBucks users.
According to Lytania Johnson, CEO of FNB’s personal segment, who spoke at an event hosted by FNB and Pick n Pay on Monday, data is going to play a key role in the programme’s development as more FNB customers are exposed to it, with hyper-personalisation central to customising rewards for clients depending on their spending behaviour.
“What is great now is we can see exactly where our customers are shopping, where they are when they do and the times they shop. All that speaks to when we present offers to our customers, that is when we link that data back in,” Johnson told TechCentral. “We can then get away from using a generic to positioning our offers to customers to drive a more personalised engagement [with them].”
Johnson said the expansion of the rewards programme presents FNB and Pick n Pay with an opportunity to understand their customers better. Over time, as more customer data is harvested, FNB clients will receive offers that are more specific to their needs and spending habits.
One of the simplest ways of using customer data in a more focused way is to encourage behaviour that maximises the rewards they earn through the programme. This is something FNB already does with its eBucks customers, said Johnson. FNB sends a prompt to a user who has just paid for fuel at a non-retail partner to let them know how many rewards points they would have earned if they had purchased their fuel at a partner filling station.
Customer behaviour
In the case of groceries, customers will be notified of the rewards they could have earned – such as eBucks points, discounts or shopping vouchers – had they shopped at a Pick n Pay instead. These prompts are meant to encouraging members to seek out their nearest Pick n Pay store the next time they go shopping.
“It unlocks so much opportunity for further interaction and personalised engagement with your customers,” said Johnson.
Read: Pick n Pay strikes back at Checkers with eBucks deal
Although the programme only kicked off last November, FNB has already observed changes in customer behaviour driven by the bank’s partnership with Pick n Pay. In a statement on Monday, FNB said that its private banking clients who opted in for the programme increased their spend at Pick n Pay stores. Around 90% of this increase was attributed to FNB customers who previously apportioned less than 20% of their total grocery spend at Pick n Pay.
eBucks Rewards CEO Pieter Woodhatch, who also spoke at Monday’s event, said FNB has paid out more than R30-million in rewards to Pick n Pay customers since the programme’s inception.
One of the programme’s goals is to encourage customers to opt for digital means of transacting instead of cash, which benefits both FNB and Pick n Pay while reducing risk. Transactions using FNB virtual cards via the FNB app attract up to 10% more in rewards points. Similar rewards are earned by shoppers on Pick n Pay’s asap! app, a competitor to market leading Checkers Sixty60.
Pick n Pay CEO Sean Summers said around 30% of the retailer’s total revenue is facilitated via cash transactions, which the retailer aims to minimise to reduce costs and the associated risk. “The cost of handling cash is huge. All the security [that comes with] handling cash makes it really expensive.” — © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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