DNA Payments and Zeal launch loyalty and customer insights on the card machine
DNA Payments has partnered with Zeal to give UK merchants branded loyalty and real-time customer insights on the card machines they already use.
DNA Payments has partnered with Zeal to launch loyalty and real-time customer insights on the card machine for UK merchants. The first DNA Payments merchants are already live, processing loyalty transactions on the card machines they use every day. Shoppers earn stamps or points when they pay by card, with no app to download and no extra card to carry.
Key takeaways
- Live with merchants. Selected DNA Payments merchants in the UK are processing loyalty transactions on their card machines today.
- Loyalty inside the payment. Customers are recognised and rewarded as they pay by card. There is no app to download and no loyalty card to carry.
- Customer insight for physical merchants. Merchants can see who their regulars are and how they buy, the kind of view online businesses have had for years.
- A sharper proposition for DNA Payments. DNA now offers branded loyalty from the card machine alongside its payments, hardware and software.
What DNA Payments merchants get
Merchants can run their own branded loyalty programme from the card machine, with stamps or points, and reward customers the moment they pay. Every card payment becomes a customer interaction the merchant can see: who is new, who is returning and how often they come back. Setup is quick, and the service works inside the payment journey customers already know on DNA Payments card machines.
For a café, a salon or an independent shop, that means knowing regulars by their visits rather than by their faces, and giving them a reason to come back without asking them to install anything.
How it works when a customer pays
- The customer pays by card as usual. Nothing changes in the payment itself.
- Zeal recognises a returning card. Zeal runs alongside the payment application on the card machine and works from a non-payment reference for the card, never the full card number, PIN or security code. Customers choose whether to join the programme.
- The reward is added. The stamp or points appear on the screen once the payment is approved.
- The merchant sees it. Visits, rewards and customer patterns show up in the merchant's reporting, ready for the next campaign.
We explain the technology in more detail in our guide to how payment-terminal customer recognition works.
Why it matters for DNA Payments
Card acceptance on its own is hard to tell apart from one provider to the next. With Zeal, DNA Payments goes beyond hardware and software to give merchants something they ask for directly: a better understanding of their customers. As Colin Neil, CEO of DNA Payments, said in the launch announcement, merchants "want to know their customers better, so they can serve them better."
It also closes a long-standing gap between online and in-store retail. Online businesses know who bought, when and how often. Most physical merchants have only ever seen a total at the end of the day. Bringing point-of-sale transaction data together with customer-level loyalty and reporting gives in-store merchants the same kind of view.
Why the card machine
As I said when we announced the partnership, the card machine is the one device that sees every customer, every day. We built Zeal so that every physical merchant can have the customer intelligence online businesses have long had, using the card machines they already have rather than another app, tablet or loyalty card. Our guide to adding loyalty without a customer app covers why that matters for merchants.
About DNA Payments
Founded in 2018, DNA Payments describes itself as one of the largest independent, fully vertically integrated omnichannel payments companies in the UK and EU. Its loyalty service is powered by Zeal.
About Zeal
Zeal puts loyalty, branded apps and customer insight on the card machines merchants already use, sold through banks, acquirers, payment providers and ISOs. More than 30,000 merchants have been activated on Zeal across payment providers, and our partners' pipeline covers 4 million payment terminals. Zeal won Team of the Year at the UK FinTech Awards 2026 and has raised $14 million in total, including $10 million in September 2026.
Sources
- DNA Payments, DNA Payments partners with Zeal to launch loyalty and real-time customer insights service in the UK (30 October 2026).
- DNA Payments, Loyalty.
About the author
Omar Ebeid is Co-founder and CEO of Zeal, which he founded with Belal Mohamed in 2019. He holds an MSc in Entrepreneurship from the University of Bath and won the Vice-Chancellor's Award at the University of Surrey. Under his leadership Zeal won Team of the Year at the UK FinTech Awards 2026 and Platinum at the Juniper Research Future Digital Awards 2023, and has raised $14 million in total. Connect with Omar on LinkedIn.
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