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People: PBT's Muriel Scanning For Coupons
February 05, 2007
By Constantine von Hoffman

Catherine Muriel thinks she can replace coupon clipping with coupons that actually get used. Muriel is the new CMO at Pay By Touch, San Francisco, a provider of biometric authentication, personalized marketing and payment solutions.

While the company is best known for systems that let consumers pay for purchases with a finger scan, it is getting set to roll out a new program that will give consumers coupon discounts without having to carry actual coupons.

"We want consumers to have a personalized shopping experience,"

she said.

The company's new system, called SmartShop, will feature kiosks at store entrances where shoppers have their fingers scanned and then automatically get whatever discounts are being offered for the products they buy.

Muriel believes the low redemption rate of paper coupons proves their lack of success with shoppers.

"Retailers are increasingly asking how do I give more value to the shopper and we think this is one way to do that," said Muriel.

She also thinks SmartShop will increase brand loyalty by giving these discounts to regular purchasers of a product. When the system is up and running, consumers will be notified of the discounts by e-mail, text message or via the Web.

Prior to joining Pay By Touch, Muriel was CMO at online lender E-Loan.

Before that, she was CMO at Upromise, the country's largest private college savings loyalty service.

She has also served in executive level positions at AXA Financial, Prudential Financial and Citigroup's credit card

division.

In her new position she will report to someone who knows the CMO role very well: John Costello, who used to be in charge of marketing at Home Depot and is now Pay By Touch's president for consumer and retail.