we.yan has signed a strategic partnership with Dsquares, a leader in loyalty, rewards and customer engagement across the Middle East and Africa, to build loyalty directly into we.yan’s infrastructure in Nigeria. The signing came as we.yan Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tamer Bahgat joined Dsquares’ Loyalize 2026 panel in Cairo, Loyalty Beyond Industry Boundaries: Becoming Part of Daily Life, where he set out a clear view of where loyalty is heading.
“The future of loyalty is not about rewarding people for spending more,” Bahgat told the audience. “It is about making their everyday lives more valuable.”
One thread across every experience
we.yan builds infrastructure with an ecosystem that combines finance, communication and commerce. A conversation leads to a trade, the trade leads to a payment, and the payment frees up money to save or invest. The same ecosystem Nigerians use to top up airtime has been selected as a digital retail channel for the Dangote Refinery Initial Public Offering.
Loyalty ties those experiences together. With Dsquares’ technology integrated into the infrastructure, the partnership aims to make rewards useful beyond a single transaction or merchant. What a customer earns paying a bill could become useful when buying from another merchant. Every experience in the ecosystem has the potential to make the next one more rewarding.
“Consumers hold points across dozens of businesses, and most of that value is trapped,” Bahgat said. “The future is not more loyalty programs. It is interoperable loyalty.”
Rewarding necessities, not luxuries
Bahgat argued that the next generation of rewards will be built around the moments people return to every week: airtime, data, bills and money sent home. Rewarding necessities creates frequency, and frequency builds habit. In a market where prices move fast, a reward that covers tomorrow’s data bundle is worth more than a discount on something you were not going to buy.
As loyalty technology evolves, those rewards could also become invisible: applied automatically at the right moment, with no separate program to join and no points to track.
“The best loyalty program of the future is the one customers never realise they are using,” Bahgat said.
Shared rewards for merchants
For merchants, the partnership creates an opportunity to develop shared rewards across the ecosystem. Small businesses could gain access to loyalty tools built directly into the infrastructure, without the cost or complexity of developing their own programs. As more merchants participate, each stands to benefit from the activity generated across the wider network.
“If I give someone ten dollars to generate five dollars of value, I have not built a loyalty strategy. I have built a subsidy,” Bahgat said. “When the cost of rewards is shared across businesses that benefit, loyalty becomes more economically sustainable.”
Built for Nigeria, ready for Africa
“For decades, brands have paid people to come back. We are building infrastructure that makes every interaction more valuable,” said Bahgat. “Loyalty is not a program you open; it is a layer woven into daily life. When payments, conversations and commerce live together, every interaction becomes an opportunity to create value.”
Marwan Kenawy, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dsquares, said: “Nigeria is one of the most dynamic digital markets in the world, and we.yan is building exactly the kind of connected ecosystem its consumers deserve. By bringing our loyalty and engagement expertise to the platform, we can help we.yan grow with its community and give people more reasons to stay connected. This partnership marks the beginning of our journey in Nigeria, and a foundation for what we will build across Africa.”
The partnership lays the foundation for interoperable rewards across the merchants, partners and services in the we.yan ecosystem.
About we.yan
we.yan builds infrastructure with an ecosystem that combines finance, communication and commerce. Users and merchants pay, save, invest, chat and trade in one place. we.yan is live in Nigeria building towards connecting people, businesses and markets across Africa and around the world. Learn more at weyan.app.
About Dsquares
Dsquares is a top B2B loyalty and rewards solutions provider, working with Fortune 500 companies and multinational corporations across Africa, the GCC, and Eastern Europe. With expertise in loyalty programs for various sectors, including banking, telecom, retail, FMCGs, hospitality, automotive, petroleum, and e-commerce, they offer a robust portfolio of over 75 customized programs. Dsquares has facilitated over 2.5 billion transactions, serving 150 million end users through a network spanning 21,000 merchant branches, solidifying their position as a trusted partner in driving customer engagement and retention.