Fintech Lab
Lesson 58Card economicsIntermediate
Loyalty and rewards: a deferred-revenue liability hiding in plain sight
Every point you give a user is debt. Real debt. With an interest expense.

Your card grants 2 points per ₦100 spent. 1 point = ₦1 redeemable for fee waivers or merchant credits. User spends ₦10,000, earns 200 points. From the user's perspective: free reward. From your books: you just took on ₦200 of contingent liability that will be recognized as expense when the points are redeemed (or breakage revenue when they expire). IFRS 15 (revenue from contracts) requires you to split each card transaction into two performance obligations: the payment service AND the rewards promise. Each gets its own revenue treatment. Get this wrong and your revenue is overstated by the points you've not yet recognized.

Fintech Lab is a free, interactive lab for fintech engineers. Real ledger, your own sandbox, engineering patterns from production. See all 85 lessons.

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