Yesterday, Starbucks introduced Stars, a coffee-based currency that will work outside its stores, and mobile payment volume of 20%.

Just another day for the Seattle coffee giant that has dominated the mobile payments world for years. Starbucks is now processing “nearly 9 million” mobile transactions a week, CEO Howard Schultz said, more than twice what it was doing two years ago.

So what’s behind the Stars strategy?

Here’s how Schultz described Stars, the new currency and loyalty platform:

Now our plan all along has been to bring both our MSR (My Starbucks Rewards) membership and our digital capabilities to scale, and we are now there, and so then leverage the Starbucks brand, our deep engagement with customers, our global store footprint and our world leading mobile digital card and loyalty assets to create the foundation of a much broader external mobile digital and loyalty platform. One that would extend to purchases and experiences outside of the four walls of the Starbucks store.

This new digital external platform will enable businesses whose customer demographics are similar to our own and with whom we choose to partner. To purchase stars from Starbucks and then to distribute the stars in order for them to acquire, retain and reward their own customers with the gift of Starbucks. And what’s really wonderful about this opportunity is that gift can only be redeemed at a Starbucks store.

Starbucks has already partnered with Lyft, Spotify, and The New York Times to extend the functionality of Stars. The Spotify deal will go live in the fall, and the other two in Q1 2016. More are, of course, in the pipeline.

What each of these partnerships affords is the opportunity for consumers to earn Starbucks Stars outside of Starbucks stores and then to redeem them for their favorite food and beverages within Starbucks stores, providing a unique opportunity for incrementality, increased profitability and the opportunity for us to serve, connect with and become part of the daily ritual of an even more larger based number of consumers, and adding further momentum to Starbucks unique increasingly global flywheel.

And since each and every Star has significant perceived value to our MSR customers, these digital platform partners will be conferring a meaningful benefit upon their new and existing customers and even their drivers in the case of Lyft.

We strongly believe that no other brick-and-mortar retailer has the brand strength, digital and physical assets or connection to consumers to create, build and execute a program anything like this.