Retailers have never had more ways to reach consumers. Yet, as Mastercard’s Johann Suchon, SVP, consumer acquisition and engagement, Apac, explains, that abundance has created a new challenge: Deciding where to focus investment to generate measurable growth.

Speaking with Amie Larter for Inside Retail‘s Retail Untangled podcast, Suchon argues that today’s retail landscape is more fragmented and competitive than ever. 

Brands now have more opportunities than ever to engage consumers across digital and physical channels, but choosing the right mix of platforms, technologies and marketing tools has become increasingly complex.

“The overall ecosystem has become more complex than it was a few years back,” Suchon says. Retailers now need to decide “which is the most efficient and which ones to let go; which one provides good AI and allows you to manage your own offers”.

Rather than waiting until shoppers arrive at a website, app or store, Suchon believes retailers need to influence purchasing decisions much earlier in the customer journey. That is where payments are evolving from a transactional function into a strategic engagement channel.

“This is where payments become critical, because not only is it a checkout option, but it is a gateway to drive and influence the consumer through the element of all the data that actually payment gets out of the brand itself. So, the way brands can influence using actual payment data is way stronger than what they can do by leveraging only their own first-party data. This is a big value for a brand to engage with payment players like Mastercard.”

Loyalty shifts from rewards to relevance

Suchon sees loyalty programs undergoing one of their biggest transformations in years. Consumer acquisition is no longer the primary challenge, he argues. The real competitive advantage lies in reaching the right consumers with offers that matter.

Historically, loyalty programs often delivered largely uniform benefits to members. That approach is becoming less effective as consumers increasingly expect personalised experiences.

“The fact that loyalty programs can now enrich their own data with payment data allows them to pinpoint in a much more precise way the offers that can be relevant to the consumer.”

Retailers that have already invested in loyalty programs are well positioned for this shift because they have built valuable first-party data assets. These businesses can already tailor communications and offers more effectively than brands without loyalty programs, and that advantage is likely to become even more important as emerging technologies such as agentic commerce mature.

Beyond improving personalisation, payment data also gives retailers a broader view of customer behaviour. Rather than relying solely on purchasing activity within a single business or category, retailers can gain insights into spending patterns across industries, helping them identify opportunities that would otherwise remain invisible.

Tourism creates new opportunities

Cross-border spending is also changing rapidly across Asia-Pacific. Today, around 70 per cent of cross-border transactions originate from consumers within the region, representing a significant shift from only a few years ago, when international spending was dominated by visitors from outside Asia-Pacific.

For retailers targeting inbound tourism, Suchon believes this presents a significant opportunity to connect travellers with relevant offers before and during their visit.

“This is where linking solutions, such as Mastercard, are super helpful, because they have reach beyond the market – where a brand or retailer usually has limited visibility – into a curated, very secure segment from banks in your own country.”

The region itself, however, remains highly diverse. Markets such as Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan have decades of experience with loyalty programs and data-driven marketing, creating high consumer expectations around personalised engagement.

“You can claim that Australia, for example, is very mature because loyalty and data-powered marketing campaigns have been run there for decades, and merchants are semi-familiar with how to use the right data for their own marketing campaigns,” Suchon says.

“The demand for brands for personalisation is way bigger, and consumers are expecting it. This is now becoming a mandatory element of overall consumer engagement and loyalty programs.”

Elsewhere, different engagement models dominate.

“Other markets in AP are not necessarily immature, just different. Markets like Southeast Asia are highly dependent on mega apps like Gojek and Grab, which drive a significant share of customer engagement by integrating payments, consumer insights, and brand engagement. This is very different from what we have in other markets.”

Partnerships become the next competitive advantage

Looking ahead, Suchon expects loyalty programs to expand well beyond traditional payment partnerships into broader collaborations across industries. Rather than operating in isolation, brands will increasingly combine customer insights with complementary businesses that serve similar audiences without directly competing.

Australia, he says, is already demonstrating what this model can achieve.

“Australia is one of the flagship markets where there’s a very high level of maturity of cooperation between brands, but it’s not necessarily the case everywhere, and we see this model becoming more standard across the industry.”

For Suchon, the direction of travel is clear. Retailers that embrace data, personalisation and ecosystem partnerships will be better placed to compete than those that continue to rely on siloed customer engagement strategies.

“This is something that is coming, but mandatory; whether it’s partnership with financial institutions or across different industry verticals, it will become more and more difficult for a brand to be siloed in its own approach to consumer engagement; to stay in its own universe without connecting with the other parts of the ecosystem.”

• Listen to the podcast to hear Suchon explain how the boom in online marketplace promotions is aiding retailers with logistics and budgeting.