Foursquare has been busy showing small-business owners various forms of love lately. But to remind us that they’re still a social media platform for the people, the company has announced two new partnerships with Visa and MasterCard, which will allow credit and debit card users to claim discounts at participating retailers. These discounts will appear as credits on their statements when users check in to these participating locations. All that’s required is syncing their credit or debit cards with their Foursquare account. Foursquare will take a fee for every credit redemption it processes.
This is essentially an expansion of its partnership with American Express. However, that deal was initially more about marketing and less about generating revenue for Foursquare, though the terms of the deal have changed to make it profitable for the location-based social network.
“This is going to be a pretty core part of our revenue model going forward,” said Noah Weiss, Foursquare’s product manager.
First Data is the technology company turning the gears behind the scenes for Foursquare.
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