Gust Pay launches social currency component to its offering

Mobile payments startup Gust Pay launched a new version of its Gust Finder app for iOS this week. The app rewards you with a Free Coffee when visiting participating Gust Coffee Club merchants.

So here is how the rewards work: simply choose any coffee from the menu when you are within 100 meters of a partner location by showing your Gust Finder deal confirmation screen to the merchant. The app has a map, list and Augmented Reality view to help you discover new coffee shops and restaurants. Shake your device and you’ll get suggestions for nearby places to visit.

Gust Finder offers users around five free coffees per month depending on their Facebook friend count, but limits users to one coffee per merchant location.

“Think of it as a coffee discovery app which incentives you to keep exploring new places,” says Joe Botha, one of the founders of Gust Pay.

“The Coffee Club is our first step into deals and loyalty and it’s a bit of an experiment in social currency. The more social media impact you have the more coffees you get,” Botha adds.

The Gust Coffee Club has about 60 active merchants at the moment, mostly around Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Merchants get new customers to visit their shops and experience their service while growing their social media awareness with Facebook Check-Ins.

“The future of commerce is completely mobile and connects the merchant and customer in new ways,” says Botha.

“Gust Finder helps customers discover deals and navigate to a shop, Gust Pay offers a quick and easy payment experience and gives the customer access to free in-shop Wi-Fi, while our Gust PayPoint app processes the payment on the merchant side. Our strategy is to integrate retail payments, music event payments, in-shop Wi-Fi, location services, loyalty and social media,” says Botha.