Greg Kidd – an early investor in Ripple and Square, as well as Twitter and Coinbase and one of the world’s most influential leaders in fintech and digital identity – has entered into a strategic partnership agreement valued at $30 million with Yoyo, Europe’s fastest-growing mobile payments and loyalty marketing platform, through his investment vehicle HardYaka. As part of the commercial agreement, Yoyo will integrate its omni-channel commerce API with HardYaka’s global user identification platform – Global iD – an innovation which it owns and operates.
Global iD is building software which enables users to create an individual token of identity, attached to a unique name, which can collect proofs of identity or “attestations” based on the person’s electronic footprint and relationships. One core use case of Global iD is to enable users to securely pay for goods and services online and in-store, helping to shape a better future for commerce that is seamless and more user friendly.
“Our deep collaboration with HardYaka supports the fact that we are doing the right thing at the right time to help retailers be more like Amazon”.
For that vision to become a reality, Global iD needed to be embedded into a proven, highly secure and scalable technology platform like Yoyo. Launched in London in 2013, Yoyo has mastered tokenization and created rich data around customer ID, based on loyalty preferences. “Yoyo is the cornerstone to the global delivery of HardYaka’s vision. We know about data – and our collaboration together will generate a boost to the Global iD movement that will shape the future of the global consumer market and disrupt the status quo,” said Alain Falys, Chairman, Yoyo Wallet.“
The collaboration aligns with Yoyo’s strategy of integrating into new and existing platforms, from financial institutions and schemes through to new emerging technologies, to increase Yoyo’s footprint and give more choice and convenience to retailers and consumers globally. It also provides a validation point for the commercial model Yoyo is developing for these integrations. “We want to work in close cooperation with Yoyo to help execute our vision of creating a global ID framework.
This will provide everyone with a secure and trusted private identity that protects consumers, improves society and fuels economic progress,” said HardYaka Founder and CEO Greg Kidd. He added: “Yoyo has a very sophisticated technology that includes a nimble application programming interface that makes it easy to integrate into the Yoyo Platform. This will enable users to pay for goods and services and receive loyalty rewards and other benefits through a mobile device – without compromising the security of the consumer or giving up more private details than necessary.” Michael Rolph, CEO, Yoyo, said: “We are building next generation commerce infrastructure that redefines the buying experience for a technology and data driven world.
Our deep collaboration with HardYaka supports the fact that we are doing the right thing at the right time to help retailers be more like Amazon”.
About Yoyo
Founded in 2013 by Michael Rolph, Alain Falys and David Nicholson, Yoyo is the fastest growing mobile payments and loyalty marketing platform in Europe. Through its unique omni-channel point-of-sale acceptance network, Yoyo delivers a seamless mobile payment and loyalty experience for consumers, whilst providing retailers with the tools to better engage, reward and retain their customers.
Through Yoyo’s unique commerce API, retailers capture customer basket data insight at the point-of-sale, enabling them to understand their customers better and deliver hyper-personalised experiences, as well as relevant marketing campaigns, based on individual purchasing behaviour. The multi-award winning Yoyo platform powers mobile payment and loyalty experiences for thousands of high street retail, education and corporate catering outlets, processes more than 2 million transactions a month, has more than 1.25 million users, and over 600,000 monthly active users. About HardYaca Hard Yaka makes strategic investments in identity, payments, and marketplaces that empower individuals.
Please visit: www.yoyowallet.com