The news: Visa cardholders can earn rewards through residential commerce and services platform Amenify when they pay for their rent with a Visa card, per a press release.

The program works with debit and credit cards, but applicable fees will apply.

Renters can use Amenify Cash for rent and local purchases at partner merchants ranging from groceries to housekeeping and handyman services. 

Why this matters: Amenify’s housing portfolio includes tens of millions of rental properties in the US, offering a wealth of rent payment volume. The only prerequisite for renters to enroll is a  Visa-backed card, making enrollment a low lift—possibly pushing adoption rates higher. 

The flexibility of using either a debit or credit card lets consumers who are wary of revolving credit still reap rewards with a debit product—especially popular with Gen Z consumers who are more likely to be early in the credit-building process. Debit transactions also typically carry lower fees than credit cards. 

Card strategy: Amenify’s choice to pursue a Visa collaboration for rent-based rewards instead of a co-brand opportunity represents a departure from the rent-for-rewards card model reflected by the Bilt and Made cards. 

In an email to EMARKETER, Amenify CEO Everett Lynn underscored that this collaboration is a push to build an agentic commerce platform, where the real value is in capturing “data, access to the home, scale, and the desire from merchants to be the exclusive provider of services for a home” versus entering the “very crowded market” for co-brand cards laden with risk.

In pursuing a platform through Visa, Lynn sees an opportunity to scoop more Gen Zers and debit-first users, which could be excluded from credit-forward solutions.   

Implications for payment providers: Visa’s penetration in commerce media-adjacent activities demonstrates both Visa and Mastercard’s growing business segments of value-added services on top of their payments sector. 

Pushes from Block and Bilt with their respective Neighborhoods are countered with Visa’s volley back, showing the power in localized, neighborhood-level strategies for capturing spend.