InComm Acquires Meridian Loyalty

Payments technology company InComm has acquired Meridian Loyalty, a business incentives company that works to build loyalty as well as engagement opportunities for corporations, according to a release.

InComm acquired Meridian to help strengthen its incentive initiatives with the creation of rewards and membership-type programs and management tools for employee, B2B and B2C platforms. The move will help to push InComm beyond specialized delivery of stored-value rewards to a large and comprehensive suite of end-to-end brand-focused loyalty, engagement and incentive programs, which will have travel and merchandise redemptions as well.

“Incentives and rewards have become essential tools for brands to engage their audiences, so we are working toward helping our customers maximize the performance of their programs,” said Brooks Smith, CEO of InComm. “The Meridian Loyalty team brings decades of experience and technological expertise in creating effective incentive, loyalty and engagement programs, and we could not be more excited to welcome them to the InComm family.”

Sam Toumayan, president and owner of Meridian Loyalty, said the company has always been in the business of rewards.

“Meridian disrupted the incentives industry in the ’80s and ’90s with the introduction of the MeridiCard, the industry’s first reloadable debit card, so our point of view has been rewards-agnostic from day one,” Toumayan said. “We’re incredibly excited to be joining the InComm team and finding innovative ways to drive positive client outcomes.”

According to a 2019 Trends Study by the Incentive Research Foundation, less than 30 percent of corporate buyers keep track of return on investment (ROI) for particular incentive-based travel programs. Also, 53 percent of merchandise and gift card programs bought by corporate users don’t report or analyze the performance of these programs.

InComm solves these problems with data-driven consultation initiatives, as well as detailed prediction analysis and tools. With this approach, corporations will get actionable insights that can help to top out participation rates as well as ROI for customers, loyalty, incentive and engagement programs.

Meridian Loyalty is based in St. Louis, Missouri, and has clients from Fortune 500 and 1000 companies all around the world. InComm is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.