Dunkin’ Owner Inspire Brands Expands Fiserv Collab to Simplify Omnichannel Commerce

Restaurant company Inspire Brands and payments services firm Fiserv have expanded their partnership.

Fiserv will continue its existing relationship with Inspire chains Dunkin’, Sonic and Baskin-Robbins while unifying “in-store, in-app and online commerce for several more of Inspire’s … restaurant concepts,” the companies announced in a Wednesday (Sept. 27) press release.

“As buying experiences become more connected to customer loyalty, enabling seamless interactions across channels has become critical to our success,” Inspire Brands Chief Financial Officer Kate Jaspon said in the release. “Inspire’s expanded relationship with Fiserv will simplify and improve how we serve our customers through any platform or payment method they choose.”

Inspire will use Fiserv’s global commerce platform Carat to allow for physical and digital payments, enhanced gift solutions and improved efficiency by unifying functions like settlement, reporting and analytics. Each brand will use the payment experiences best suited to its customers’ needs.

“Our expanded relationship with Inspire exemplifies how large enterprises are making targeted investments to create deeper, more unified experiences for customers while optimizing costs,” said Casey Klyszeiko, head of Carat and global eCommerce at Fiserv. “By simplifying their commerce model, Inspire will be able to better streamline in-house operations.”

The expanded partnership comes as more than a quarter of consumers are avoiding restaurant purchases, according to PYMNTS Intelligence from “Consumer Interest in an Everyday App,” a collaboration with PayPal. The study found that 27% of U.S. consumers didn’t make a restaurant purchase at all in the 30 days before being surveyed.

And restaurants are reporting that consumers are holding off. Last week, casual dining giant Darden Restaurants reported a roughly 7% decrease in traffic year over year in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024 at its The Capital Grille and Eddie V’s brands.

The partnership expansion announcement also comes days after Justin Jackson, senior vice president and head of enterprise payments at Fiserv, told PYMNTS that the arrival of the FedNow® Service in the United States is pushing real-time payments to the forefront of industry conversations.

The goal of instant payments is to replicate the convenience of cash transactions, where funds are immediately available, Jackson said. Instant payments by definition must provide “good funds” that can be accessed immediately, and their availability should extend to a 24/7 basis.