Across Europe, employee benefits are shifting from one-size-fits-all perks toward flexible, card-enabled programs, but the specific benefits that matter, the providers that deliver them, and the regulations that shape them vary widely from one country to the next. A leading global payments network engaged KoreFusion to build a fact-based market map of the employee benefits landscape across five Central and Eastern European markets, extending a multi-market research program the two have built together over several phases.

The Challenge

The payments network's commercial teams needed a defensible, market-by-market fact base to prioritize go-to-market resources and refine their product and sales strategy in the employee benefits space. Reliable, comparable market intelligence on benefit types, providers, and card economics was scattered and inconsistent, and difficult to assemble on a like-for-like basis across markets with very different tax regimes, benefit categories, and provider ecosystems.

The Approach

KoreFusion conducted a secondary-research-driven study across five markets, sizing the overall employee benefits opportunity and its cardable footprint in each country, profiling the leading benefits providers and HR platforms, mapping card network and closed-loop dynamics, and benchmarking commission rates and growth trends across the primary benefit categories, from meal vouchers to wellness, transport, and family-related allowances. For each market, KoreFusion also identified the key regulatory and tax drivers shaping how benefits are designed and distributed, along with the providers best positioned for future partnership outreach.

The Outcome

The research gave the payments network's commercial teams individual country-level market reports they could use to prioritize investment, identify go-to-market partners, and ground conversations with providers and internal stakeholders in consistent, defensible data across each market. The engagement extended a fact base the payments network can continue to build on as it expands its employee benefits strategy further across Europe.