Gini is an online-to-offline digital commerce technology that enables merchants and marketers to target loyalty and rewards based on actual transaction data from banks, and represents a technological breakthrough for marketers, who have long struggled to properly target consumers in a market dominated by offline spending. Launching in Hong Kong in Q2 2017, the CRM platform will help merchants identify and reward customers with discounts, offers and incentives based on actual spending habits. Users will be able to redeem cash-back rewards by simply using any credit card linked to the app, without any need for vouchers. Merchants will not need to adapt their hardware to track loyalty points as customer loyalty will be measured through Gini’s data science. 

Gini deploys the eWise AEGIS aggregation platform to pool multiple end-user credit cards and bank accounts, along with the eWise Categorisation-as-a-Service (CaaS) artificial intelligence API to analyse individual spending patterns. Combined, this personal finance technology will identify the customers that merchants are targeting, and directly offer them loyalty rewards and offers through the platform. The collaboration with Gini marks eWise’s first Hong Kong partner, and is comprised of a local dream-team of founding entrepreneurs; brothers Calvin Lang (梁敬汪) and Victor Lang (梁敬熙), and their cousin ex-Citibank Vice-President, Raymond Wyand.

CEO, Raymond Wyand said: “Gini will give Hong Kong’s residents an intuitive relationship with their favorite vendors, enabling truly targeted discounts. Unlike other apps which have a scatter-gun approach to loyalty points, Gini deploys proprietary data technology to identify customers deserving of rewards. This saves the merchant valuable time, improving an indispensable element of Hong Kong’s personal finance eco-system, all while maintaining user privacy.” 

Once billed as a leading young entrepreneur by Bloomberg’s BusinessWeek Asia, COO Victor Lang said: “eWise has been a tremendous partner for us. Their emphasis on best-in-class security and data privacy protection allowed us to create an in-device solution that ensures total user privacy. Through eWise, we can get a holistic view of end-users’ spending, and merchants signed on to the Gini platform won’t have to change their transaction software to keep track of their most loyal customers. Given our experience so far, it’s no surprise to me that HSBC group and Westpac have also chosen eWise as partners.

David Hamilton, CEO of eWise said: “For their personalised rewards solution, Gini needed a reliable and robust transaction categorisation API, and the security of client-side data aggregation supplied through the eWise AEGIS platform. We’re delighted to have Gini as our first Hong Kong partner, as we continue our expansion into Asia markets.”

Gini was recently admitted into the Cyberport Incubation Programme, a Hong Kong government backed initiative to support entrepreneurs. Gini’s launch coincides with Hong Kong’s emergence as a Fintech player driven by Hong Kong’s robust capital markets, banking experience and the city’s gradual cultural shift from conservatism to experimentation as signaled by Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority September 2016 launch of a regulatory sandbox to drive innovation. 

Gini is a member of the CardLinx Association, a non-profit professional consortium with a mission to increase the interoperability and promote the growth of online-to-offline commerce and card linking. Other members of the CardLinx Association include Microsoft, Mastercard, Discover, Facebook, AirBNB, Hilton, Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company, and Samsung.