UAE bank Mashreq has launched a new cashback proposition for cardholders through a Visa Card Linked Offers program, with the effort supported by AI-focused commerce technology provider Rezolve Ai. The initiative is designed to tie merchant promotions directly to card spend, with customers able to discover, activate, and track cashback through the Mashreq app.
What Mashreq, Visa, and Rezolve Ai are launching
Under the program, Mashreq UAE cardholders can access automated cashback offers of up to 20% at hundreds of participating merchants across the UAE and internationally. The rollout expands Mashreq’s existing Vantage Rewards ecosystem, which previously focused on a narrower set of cardholder experiences, by extending cashback eligibility to both debit and credit card customers.
Rezolve Ai said its Reward platform powers “Everyday Cashback,” positioning the technology as a layer that connects banks, payments networks, and merchants to deliver transaction-linked promotions. The company’s framing centers on analytics-driven personalization, in which offers are tailored to customers, while merchants gain a channel intended to improve acquisition and incremental sales.
How the cashback experience is delivered
The program is described as fully digital. Mashreq cardholders can view available offers, activate them, and track cashback transactions directly within the Mashreq app. This workflow aims to provide a “single journey” for customers from offer discovery to reward fulfillment, rather than relying on separate coupon or redemption steps.
While the announcement emphasizes ease of use and transparency in the app experience, the key operational detail for the payments industry is the mechanism of card-linked offers themselves. Card-linked offers generally rely on payment transaction data to determine when an eligible merchant purchase occurred, enabling cashback to be calculated and credited based on card activity.
Why this matters for payments in the UAE
For banks, loyalty programs are increasingly expected to move beyond static point accumulation and into dynamic, spend-related offers. Card-linked cashback is one way to do that, particularly when delivered through a mobile banking interface where activation and tracking can be controlled end to end.
For merchants, commerce-linked promotions are also evolving. The announcement characterizes Rezolve Ai’s platform as creating a measurable “commerce media” channel for participating partners. In practice, that means offers are intended to be tied to outcomes that are easier for merchants to evaluate, such as customer engagement and incremental revenue, rather than broad, untargeted discounting.
In the UAE, where competitive differentiation among banks is closely tied to digital experiences, programs like this also reflect a wider trend: payments and engagement capabilities are being bundled with or layered onto core card infrastructure. Visa’s involvement signals alignment with standardized card-linked offer capabilities that can scale across issuers and merchants.
Scale and regulatory context
Mashreq reported AED 335 billion (approximately US$91 billion) in total assets for FY2025, along with AED 205 billion (approximately US$56 billion) in customer deposits and AED 12.6 billion (approximately US$3.4 billion) in operating income. The bank’s stated intention is to place AI-enabled cashback inside a high-frequency, regulated environment that is already integrated into everyday spending.
For technology vendors, partnerships with large issuers can be a route to real-world deployment, because card-linked programs depend on consistent transaction processing, customer identity and app-based engagement. The announcement positions the Mashreq rollout as a step beyond traditional retail commerce applications for Rezolve Ai’s Reward platform, extending its use case into consumer banking rewards.
Broader industry implications: commerce media and personalization
Commerce media has become a key term across retail, payments, and financial services. The concept typically refers to monetizing consumer attention and purchase intent using data and digital delivery channels, often with offers embedded into the moments when customers are paying.
This Mashreq-Visa launch underscores that banks and payment networks are actively looking for new ways to create customer value while also offering merchants a more accountable advertising and promotion channel. Personalization, enabled by analytics, is presented as the lever for improving relevance. The industry question that follows is how consistently personalization improves outcomes without degrading trust, privacy, or customer experience.
What we know, and what remains unclear
The announcement provides an overview of the program’s structure, including that cashback can reach up to 20% and that offers are available at a range of merchants. However, it does not specify details such as program duration, eligibility rules beyond debit and credit extension, exact settlement mechanics, or whether cashback caps and exclusions apply per merchant, per transaction, or per cardholder.
As with many loyalty and card-linked products, those specifics typically shape customer perception and operational costs for issuers. The practical impact will depend on participating merchant coverage, how frequently customers see offers they can use, and how quickly rewards are credited after qualifying spend.
Next steps for UAE cardholders and merchants
For Mashreq customers, the immediate change is access to a cashback proposition surfaced through the Mashreq app, with card-linked activation and tracking intended to streamline redemption. For merchants, participation offers a new promotional channel that is described as measurable and tied to card transactions.
Whether the program becomes a lasting differentiator will likely hinge on retention and engagement metrics, particularly the share of customers who activate offers and the repeat purchase behavior of those who do. Those results will also inform how quickly similar partnerships expand across other banks and card issuers in the region.
