Europe Loyalty Market Size & Forecast by Spend Value Across 100+ KPIs by Program Type, Channel Mix, Sector, Embedded Loyalty Penetration, and Platform Spend Segmentation - Databook Q1 2026 Update

The loyalty market in Europe is expected to grow by 14.1% annually, reaching US$18.8 billion by 2026.

The loyalty market in the region has experienced robust growth during 2021-2025, achieving a CAGR of 16.2%. This upward trajectory is expected to continue, with the market forecast to grow at a CAGR of 11.9% from 2026 to 2030. By the end of 2030, the loyalty market is projected to expand from its 2025 value of US$16.5 billion to approximately US$29.5 billion.

Key Trends and Drivers

• Shift loyalty from a marketing layer to a core transaction mechanic
• Loyalty in Europe is increasingly embedded directly into checkout, payment, and fulfilment flows, rather than operating as a separate engagement layer. In France, Carrefour has continued to integrate Club Carrefour benefits directly into its omnichannel checkout experience, aligning discounts and personalised pricing with identified customers at the point of sale. In Germany, REWE Group has reinforced app-based identification at checkout, ensuring loyalty benefits trigger automatically without requiring the customer to take any additional steps.
• European retailers face sustained pressure on margins and are prioritising repeat behaviour and basket consistency over campaign-led engagement. Fragmented loyalty apps have shown limited impact; embedding loyalty into the transaction reduces friction and increases certainty of benefit delivery. Advances in POS-app integration across European grocery and convenience formats make this operationally feasible at scale.
• Loyalty will increasingly be evaluated as part of retail infrastructure, not a marketing programme. Programs that remain optional or detached from payment flows are likely to lose relevance.

Use coalition and ecosystem models to extend loyalty reach beyond a single retailer

• European markets are seeing renewed emphasis on multi-partner loyalty ecosystems that aggregate daily spend categories. In Italy, Nexi continues to position loyalty as a service layer for banks and merchants, enabling rewards to operate across multiple acceptance points. In Austria, Payback remains central to grocery, fuel, and pharmacy spend, reinforcing coalition loyalty as a distribution channel rather than a promotion tool.
• Single-merchant programs struggle to achieve daily relevance outside grocery or fuel. Coalition models allow cost sharing while increasing the frequency of earn-and-burn opportunities. Banks and payment players view loyalty as a method to defend transaction volumes and customer stickiness.
• Coalition loyalty is likely to consolidate around fewer, larger-scale platforms per country. Retailers outside essential categories will increasingly rely on ecosystems rather than standalone schemes.

Reposition loyalty value from long-term rewards to immediate, usable benefits

• European loyalty programs are reducing emphasis on deferred rewards and focusing on instant value, such as price reductions, checkout credits, or immediate vouchers. In Switzerland, Coop continues to promote point redemption directly at checkout, positioning points as a spendable balance rather than a future reward. In Spain, El Corte Inglés has reinforced its card-linked benefits, which deliver value at the time of purchase.
• High inflation sensitivity across Europe has reduced consumer appetite for delayed gratification. Retailers seek clearer attribution between loyalty and sales outcomes, which immediate benefits enable. Accounting and liability management also favour faster redemption cycles.

Programs will increasingly resemble pricing and payment mechanisms rather than aspirational reward clubs. Breakage-dependent models will become less defensible.

• Align loyalty with financial services to influence payment choice and frequency
• Loyalty is increasingly tied to cards, wallets, and banking relationships, influencing how consumers pay rather than just where they shop. In the United Kingdom, Tesco continues to link Clubcard pricing with Tesco Bank products, reinforcing payment-linked loyalty. In France, BNP Paribas has expanded merchant-linked offers within its banking apps, positioning rewards as part of everyday money management.
• Payment providers are competing for primary transaction status. Loyalty provides a non-interest-based lever to shift consumer behaviour. Regulatory scrutiny limits aggressive pricing incentives, increasing reliance on rewards instead.
• The boundary between loyalty, payments, and banking will continue to blur. Retailers without financial services partnerships may struggle to influence payment behaviour.

Competitive Landscape

Fewer, larger platforms will provide the loyalty operating layer (wallet passes, offer decisioning, and identity), while airlines and coalitions deepen partner networks to protect the relevance of earn/burn. Expect more vendor consolidation and retailer build-vs-buy decisions driven by checkout integration needs and compliance requirements.

Current State of the Market

• Competitive intensity is high because loyalty is now tied to pricing, payments, and identity at checkout, not just points and campaigns. Retailers and platforms are competing to control the customer relationship across channels (store, app, delivery, marketplace).
• The market is split between (a) scaled “owner ecosystems” (grocers, marketplaces, airlines) that run loyalty as a core operating system, and (b) technology vendors that sell the tooling (personalisation, challenges, wallet passes, offer decisioning) to everyone else. This creates constant pressure on mid-tier retailers to modernise or risk losing share of wallet.

Key Players and New Entrants

• Retail / platform-led loyalty owners: Tesco Clubcard (UK), Carrefour (France), REWE/Payback ecosystem (Germany/Austria), and airline groups using loyalty as a profit engine (IAG’s Avios; Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue; Lufthansa Group’s Miles & More).
• Loyalty & promotion tech vendors (Europe-based): Eagle Eye (UK), Voyado (Sweden), Talon.One (Germany), Antavo (UK/Europe delivery). These firms increasingly compete with marketing clouds by owning “decisioning” at the transaction layer.
• New entrants/adjacent players: wallet-native “pass” mechanics are expanding as an alternative to standalone apps (e.g., PAR Punchh Smart Passes positioning).

Recent Launches, Mergers, and Acquisitions

• M&A (platform consolidation): Voyado’s acquisition of WasHere (Sweden) signals consolidation around omnichannel loyalty infrastructure, such as Apple/Google Wallet membership cards.
• Capability “arms race” via funding: Talon. One’s large 2025 growth round supports faster product expansion and competitive pressure on legacy loyalty stacks.
• Retailer-vendor partnerships scaling “challenges” mechanics: Tesco’s Clubcard Challenges recognition highlights how grocers are industrialising personalised missions rather than running static offers.

This report provides a detailed data-centric analysis of the loyalty industry in Europe, offering comprehensive coverage of both overall and alternative lending markets. It covers more than 100+ KPIs, including spend value on loyalty schemes, loyalty breakage rate, and penetration rate.

The report provides in-depth segmentation across the loyalty ecosystem, capturing loyalty spend value and breaking it down by core market dimensions. It classifies loyalty activity by program models (such as points, cashback, tiered, subscription, coalition, and gamified formats), membership structures, and execution channels (in-store, online, and mobile app), alongside embedded loyalty use cases integrated into payments, commerce, and platform ecosystems. The analysis further segments the market by industry verticals and assesses technology enablement, including AI-driven personalisation and emerging blockchain-led program mechanics. In addition, the dataset captures consumer demographics, enrolment pathways, and key program economics such as value accumulation, redemption, and breakage. Collectively, these datasets provide a comprehensive and quantifiable view of market size, structure, engagement behaviour, and value realisation dynamics within the loyalty market.

The research methodology is based on industry best practices. Its unbiased analysis leverages a proprietary analytics platform to deliver a detailed view of market performance, structural trends, and growth dynamics across the loyalty ecosystem, covering loyalty spend value, consumer engagement patterns, and channel execution.

This title is a bundled offering, combining the following 17 reports, covering 1300+ tables and 1800+ figures:Europe Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook

• Austria Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Belgium Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Denmark Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Finland Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• France Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Germany Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Greece Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Ireland Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Israel Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Italy Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Netherlands Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Poland Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Russia Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Spain Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• Switzerland Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook
• United Kingdom Loyalty Market Business and Investment Opportunities Databook

Report Scope

This report provides a detailed data-centric analysis of the loyalty industry, with comprehensive coverage across retail-sector context, loyalty spend dynamics, and loyalty platform economics. Below is a summary of key market segments:

Retail Sector Market Context

• Retail Industry Market Size, 2021-2030
• Ecommerce Market Size, 2021-2030
• POS Market Size Trend Analysis, 2021-2030

Loyalty Spend Market Size and Growth Dynamics

• Loyalty Spend Market Size and Future Growth Dynamics, 2021-2030
• Loyalty Spend on Schemes by Value Accumulated and Value Redemption Rate, 2025
• Loyalty Spend Share by Functional Domains, 2021-2030
• Loyalty Spend by Loyalty Schemes, 2021-2030
• Loyalty Spend by Loyalty Platforms, 2021-2030

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Loyalty Program Type

• Point-based Loyalty Program
• Tiered Loyalty Program
• Mission-driven Loyalty Program
• Spend-based Loyalty Program
• Gaming Loyalty Program
• Free Perks Loyalty Program
• Subscription Loyalty Program
• Community Loyalty Program
• Refer a Friend Loyalty Program
• Paid Loyalty Program
• Cashback Loyalty Program

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Channel

• In-Store
• Online
• Mobile

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Business Model

• Seller Driven
• Payment Instrument Driven
• Other Segment

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Key Sectors

• Retail
• Financial Services
• Healthcare & Wellness
• Restaurants & Food Delivery
• Travel & Hospitality (Cabs, Hotels, Airlines)
• Telecoms
• Media & Entertainment
• Other

Sector × Channel Views: Loyalty Schemes Spend by Key Sectors and Channels

• Online Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030
• In-store Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030
• Mobile App Loyalty Spend by Sector, 2021-2030

Retail Sector Deep-Dive: Loyalty Schemes Spend by Retail Segment

• Diversified Retailers
• Department Stores
• Specialty Stores
• Supermarket and Convenience Store
• Other

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Accessibility

• Card Based Access
• Digital Access

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Consumer Type

• B2B Consumers
• B2C Consumers

Loyalty Schemes Spend Segmentation by Membership Type

• Free
• Free + Premium
• Premium

Loyalty Spend Split by Embedded vs. Non-Embedded Loyalty

• Embedded Loyalty Programs
• Non-Embedded Loyalty Programs

Loyalty Spend Split by Use of AI / Blockchain

• AI Driven Loyalty Program
• Blockchain Driven Loyalty Program

Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Software Use Case

• Analytics and AI Driven
• Management Platform

Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Vendor / Solution Partner

• In-house
• Third-Party Vendor

Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Deployment

• Cloud
• On-Premise

Loyalty Platform Spend Segmentation by Offering

• Software
• Services
• Custom Built Platform vs. Off the Shelf Platform

Consumer Demographics & Behaviour (Loyalty Spend Share), 2025

• Age Group
• Income Level
• Gender

Loyalty Program KPIs, Behavioral Metrics & Embedded, 2025

• Primary Loyalty Motivation Split Analysis
• Loyalty Program Breakage Rate Analysis
• Loyalty Program Enrollment Channel Mix Analysis
• Embedded Loyalty Penetration by Channel

Reasons to Buy

• Comprehensive Market Intelligence: Gain a comprehensive view of the loyalty market by quantifying total loyalty spend value and its composition across loyalty schemes and loyalty platforms, supported by retail context indicators to benchmark market scale, structure, and growth dynamics.
• Granular Loyalty Spend Coverage: Analyze loyalty spend value across loyalty schemes and loyalty platforms, supported by structured segmentation across program types (e.g., point-based, tiered, cashback, subscription, community, gaming, mission-driven, paid, and referral-led formats).
• Channel and Sector-Level Execution Insights: Evaluate how loyalty spend is distributed across in-store, online, and mobile channels, and across key verticals including Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare & Wellness, Restaurants & Food Delivery, Travel & Hospitality, Telecoms, and Media & Entertainment, with dedicated sector × channel views.
• Program Structure and Participation Mix: Understand how loyalty schemes differ by business model (seller-driven vs. payment-instrument-driven), accessibility (card-based vs. digital), consumer type (B2B vs. B2C), and membership type (free, premium, and free+premium), enabling more precise program design and competitive benchmarking.
• Embedded Loyalty and Emerging Mechanisms Tracking: Assess the evolution of embedded vs. non-embedded loyalty and track spend splits linked to program enablement, including AI-driven and blockchain-driven loyalty program spend where captured in the dataset.
• Platform Spend and Vendor/Deployment Benchmarking: Benchmark loyalty platform economics by software use case (analytics/AI-driven vs. management platforms), solution partner model (in-house vs. third-party), deployment (cloud vs. on-premise), and offering mix (software vs. services; custom-built vs. off-the-shelf).
• Consumer Demographics and Program KPI Lens: Access loyalty spend share by age, income, and gender, alongside decision-critical program KPIs such as loyalty penetration (% of retail sales under loyalty), primary motivation split, breakage rate, enrollment channel mix, and embedded loyalty penetration by channel.
• Decision-Ready Databook Format with 100+ KPIs: Leverage a structured dataset with historical and forecast coverage through 2030, designed for direct integration into market models, strategic planning, and executive presentations by retailers, platforms, payment providers, technology vendors, and investors.