Industry News
2012 – The Year of Awkwardly Elegant Partnerships
Monday, 16 January 2012
Another big year in store for prepaid!Every year is going to be a huge year for Prepaid. The market is expanding, the migration from paper to plastic continues apace, new form factors such as mobile are gaining a foothold and new countries are beginning to embrace the product. Whilst this year will be no different in so far as the end user experiences it I do believe that there will be a big change behind the scenes. Prepaid is not a cheap business; the infrastructure required...
Prepaid to become the only “game” in town
Monday, 28 November 2011
Online gaming - Let’s playThe “humble” games console has greatly evolved in the last decade. A gamers’ choice of opponents is no longer limited to their computer or a friend sitting beside them. Thanks largely to better consoles and the increased speed and availability of the internet, you can now challenge virtually (no pun intended) anyone, anywhere, anytime. The online gaming market is a...
Google Wallet…
Thursday, 22 September 2011
…bringing prepaid its critical mass? Google Wallet has been designed for an open commerce ecosystem. It will eventually hold many if not all of the cards you keep in your leather wallet today. And because Google Wallet is a mobile app, it will be able to do more than a regular wallet ever could, like storing thousands of payment cards and loyalty offers but without the bulk. Eventually your loyalty cards,
Britons spend £391 million on overseas ATM withdrawals in just 12 months!
Friday, 19 August 2011
Prepaid card may be best choice for overseas trips According to independent research firm Defaqto, holidaymakers who use the wrong type of card could end up paying far more than necessary during their trip. When one takes into account that research by Sainsbury's Travel Money that found that UK holidaymakers have collectively spent £391million on foreign ATM withdrawals alone over the past 12months, Defaqto are surely right! This is hardly surprising when you bear...
The economy may be slow, yet gift card sales grow!
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Gift card popularity continues to soar!Question: What product category in the UK grew top line sales by 14.3% compared to overall retail sales growth of just 0.8% (source BRC)? Answer: Gift Cards and vouchers (according to the good folks at the UK Gift Card and Voucher Association – check it out
Bands debut at Isle of Wight Festival
Wednesday, 03 August 2011
Prepaid innovation knows no Bands!A play on words I know but at the recent Isle of Wight Festival revellers were trialling a new method of payment, delivered by contactless wrist bands! 150 festival-goers were offered the first ever MasterCard PayPass prepaid contactless wristbands. The bands were pre-loaded with £30 and could be used to pay for food and drink by simply waving the band against a dedicated contactless reader.
Take advantage of the second Reduced VAT Rate
Wednesday, 06 July 2011
Get Value from the VAT ReductionThanks to the second Reduced VAT Rate in Ireland I saved 5c on my coffee this morning. While 5c a day is hardly big news, it got me thinking, how could gift cards help businesses benefit from the reduced VAT rate? The new lower VAT rate has been introduced in respect of certain goods and services (mainly related to tourism) for the period 1 July 2011 to 31...
Paying for coffee via your mobile?
Monday, 27 June 2011
Unofficial m-payment app a smooth hit at StarbucksAn unofficial mobile payments application for Starbucks, which enables smartphone users to make POS purchases by displaying a bar code that is linked to their prepaid card account, is proving very popular and has been downloaded over 160,000 times. The third party app is designed for smartphones using Google's Android operating system, for which the coffee retailer has not yet released its increasingly...
‘Around the world in eighty ways’
Friday, 17 June 2011
Different uses for Gift Card from around the globeOne of the best ways to maximise the return on your gift card programme is, bizarrely, to not think of it as just a 'gift' card programme. Ask yourself how else your prepaid card's functionality could be used. Over the last week or two I’ve come across a few articles on the web that epitomise the 'think differently' mantra. How...
'Father's Gift Card Day'
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Happy Dads. Made Easy.Mother’s Day each year is the sacred cow (no pun intended) of annual calendar celebration days. While it is a touch below the wedding anniversary and spouse birthday, it remains a key gifting and therefore emotionally dangerous day to make a hash of. Father’s Day on the other hand has to be the forgotten child – let’s face it, we Dads don’t take it that seriously now do we? However, any opportunity to...
Closed loop ate my glass slipper!
Thursday, 26 May 2011
Fairytale ruined as ugly sister wins (consumers') hearts At a recent meeting in London a number of the leading prepaid program managers in Europe reflected on what was inhibiting the growth of prepaid across Europe. The group identified the following: -
Uncertainty regarding legislation -
"Not invented here" mindset in each country -
Lack of consumer awareness of the prepaid value...
Disneyland Florida, the home of Mickey Mouse and Friends.....
Monday, 16 May 2011
Oh and of course Gift Cards Galore!Don’t worry... I am not going to bore you to death with all the details about my recent vacation to Disneyland Florida, albeit hasten to say the family had a wonderful time and the weather was great! However I wouldn’t be an industry stalwart if I didn’t keep an eye out for prepaid/ gift card products while I was in Florida shopping..... And yes we did plenty of shopping much to my dismay as the wallet is now much...
A month in the life of a Groupon CityDeal
Friday, 06 May 2011
The Groupon lifecycle in the blink of an eye?At the recent Leinster v Toulouse barnstormer in Dublin, a continuous cycle of crowd behaviour piqued my interest. Everybody starts sitting down with a relatively equal and fair view of the match. The game kicks off and an exciting phase of play finally prompts an excited spectator to jump out of his seat to get the perfect view of what’s happening. In turn, more and more spectators jump out of their seats...
Limited Networks, Limitless Possibilities
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
2EMD & PrepaidThe Second e-Money Directive (2EMD), which aims to encourage the growth of the electronic money market, will be implemented in most countries by the 30th April 2011. 2EMD is a very positive development for the prepaid industry. What is electronic money? Its a bit of a mouthful is what it is … “Electronic money (e-money) is electronically stored monetary value, represented by a claim on the issuer...
O2 Money Card - A Fee-ble Offering?
Monday, 18 April 2011
The fine line between genius and insanityOpen loop prepaid cards got quite a bit of press lately with the recent launch of the O2 Money Card in the Republic of Ireland. The O2 Money Card has been heralded from pillar to post as a great innovation, a really handy thing to have, increasing security and offering people who may not be able to obtain a credit card access to one, of sorts. It is true, if you don’t have or want to have a credit card in...
UK Gift Card and Voucher Association Annual Conference
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Card Commerce was there....The recent and very well attended UK Gift Card and Voucher Association annual conference in London gave an interesting insight into ‘hot topics’ of industry interest. Strolling the coffee and exhibition area between conference slots, the usual industry suppliers were present promoting their wares and lots of busy networking was in evidence. Certainly the concentrated agenda of a single day worked...
Welcome Travelshop365.com
Monday, 11 April 2011
Introducing a better way to Travel Shop - 365 days a year In partnership with our partner, Barclaycard Payment Acceptance, we would like to welcome Travelshop365.com onto our industry-leading prepaid platform. ‘The Travel Gift Card’, launched in February 2011, can be used to book flights, accommodation, package holidays or...
Trailfinders blaze a promotional trail!
Friday, 08 April 2011
Advertising. Made Easy.Trailfinders, a Card Commerce gift card customer, recently teamed up with the Daily Mirror to offer one Lucky reader the chance to win a holiday to the US worth £2,000. Yes, the lucky winner will receive a Trailfinders Gift card worth £2,000 so they can create their own bespoke trip to the States.
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Gift Cards show super Christmas growth
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Every (snow) storm has a silver liningSomewhat unsurprisingly, Christmas shoppers turned to gift cards in their droves to ensure their friends and families were still smiling on Christmas morning. And how warm it feels to this writer to see those retailers who are investing in multiple sales channels being richly rewarded for their efforts. M&S online gift card sales up by 30% year on year is just about as good a testimonial as you can get to the validity of promoting your gift...
Gift Cards and Vouchers are up there!
Monday, 06 December 2010
Christmas Spending Survey 2010Gift vouchers and gift cards are at the top of the gift wish-list in Ireland in 2010 according to Deloitte's annual Christmas Spending Survey. And it seems that many other European countries including the UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and France share this preference for the gift of choice and self-selection. In the Top 10 list of 'gifts people will buy for their family and friends', gift vouchers came 2nd with 54% and gift cards 8th...
Starbucks takes prepaid mobile
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Pay for your coffee with a scan of your phone!The article below about Starbucks’ recent launch of mobile payments in its coffee shops is a great case-study for prepaid. What makes this interesting is that a single closed-loop prepaid account is now supporting both card and phone redemptions and the contactless engagement is being driven by mobile versus card (which is still prohibitive for closed-loop in general). Moreover, it’s not yet another case of technology for...
Let's get contactless going!
Tuesday, 02 November 2010
It'll be great - if it's done right!As reported in Contactless News, the fact that MBNA is going for a mass roll-out of contactless is good news. Having more contactless cards in issue will drive the adoption of contactless readers, in turn driving even more issuance! Closed loop prepaid (including gift card, travel card etc) is dominated by magnetic...
E&Y Entrepreneurs use Card Commerce Gift Cards!
Friday, 22 October 2010
Maybe you should too?In this year's Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year, of the eight finalists in the Emerging Category, two of them - Nevin Maguire of MacNean House in Cavan and Liam Griffin of Griffin Hotels - actively issue gift cards supported by Card Commerce and our partners Fexco and Fintrax. Now we're not saying that it was gift card alone that...
Dublin Bus! Give us our money back !
Thursday, 21 October 2010
€1.5m to be pocketed in 2010!Dublin Bus announces that it has no effective way of returning cash rightfully owned by their customers unless they call in personally to request it. Now we know there are valid reasons for the 'exact fare only' policy but that does not excuse the fact that €1.5m in 2010 will be pocketed by a taxpayer funded organisation for no other reason that the process...
Restaurant.com sells 1.5m gift vouchers in 2 days!
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Yes, that’s 1,500,000 gift vouchers in two days!!As reported on techcrunch this week, restaurant.com sold 1.5 million vouchers a couple of weeks back through one of the ever multiplying daily deal sites (many of which now actually have decent offers!) They offered vouchers for up to 90% off their face value (prices from as low as a $1). OK, so...
Online Sales of Gift Cards
Monday, 11 October 2010
Expand your customer reach by selling cards online....A vital element of a successful gift card programmes is having a strong multi-channel strategy in place (effectively, selling your cards in as many places as possible). Whatever the size of your business or the number of outlets you have, the online world is becoming an important channel, allowing you to reach beyond your local customer base. But how? There are several ways you can launch online from totally outsourcing the...
News from over the Pond
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
But we’re getting there too!This article is from the Prepaid Press, a big US website that looks at trends in the prepaid sector. In this article they are starting to look at the ways in which gifting has changed over the years, the ways in which consumers are changing their gifting habits and what retailers are doing as a result to meet changing demand. In it they look at online gifting, text...
Payment Solutions. Going mobile
Friday, 24 September 2010
From simple phone to smart payment deviceIn a recent article published by Reuters (Payment by smartphone still years away: MasterCard) Mastercard seems to believe that the use of smart phones as payment devices is at least ‘a couple of years away’?! While this may the case in the US, there are a number of significant developments on this side of the Atlantic which indicate that, as...
Great gift card marketing. Badly executed
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
The Apprentices 'sell' Carlton Hotel Giftcards The opening episode of The Apprentice in Ireland last night gave a glimpse into how NOT to successfully promote your gift card to your customers! Sitting in a taxi sharing a phone, doing cold calls for 3 hours got short shrift from Bill Cullen and rightly so. To say nothing of the chap (fired) who got exactly zero sales for an entire day. If this lot are the future...
Success in Travel cards
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
Tui blows prepaid targets out of the waterAs reported on TravelWeekly.co.uk yesterday Tui, the parent company of Thomson and First Choice, has smashed its own targets for sales of its Travel Money Card. It's good to see how the key components of a successful open loop prepaid programme are combined to best effect. First Choice and Thomson are trusted brands...
All this talk of electronic payments is great...
Wednesday, 08 September 2010
...but we need ways to make it happen!
As a counter to misguided musings of our Minister for Justice, this piece is good.
What is also needed though is a low-cost bank account that is attractive to the unbanked. There are numerous ways to achieve this, including the use of prepaid cards, but given the number of 'zombie banks' the state (and, for that matter, the taxpayer!) currently has on its books, possibly they could direct one to champion the consumer!?
DaveH
No Terminal? Get a smartphone!
Friday, 03 September 2010
50% of UK SMEs using smartphones for email or payments
As reported in today's Finextra, a quarterly survey of British SMEs by The Open University Business School, Barclays Bank and accountancy body the ACCA, has revealed that almost half of British SMEs are using smartphone for email or to log onto the web for business and payments.
Card & Payments Awards 2011
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Don't wait - get your entry in now!
If you're thinking of submitting your card or payments programme for consideration in the Card & Payment Industry Awards you better get to it. Entries close at 5pm on 6th October 2010 - that's only 6 weeks from now. To check your...
Youth Card Phenomenon
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Great Opportunity in Youth Sector
A new syndicated market research report published by Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG) suggests that prepaid cards carrying network brands (like Visa or MasterCard) are gaining in popularity in the US – but primarily as gift cards. The Cardbeat® survey found that 42 percent of respondents said that they had received a network-branded (or open-loop) gift...
UKGCVA Q2 Stats
Thursday, 12 August 2010
Sharpest gift card growth ever recorded at 22%!
According to the latest figures from The UK Gift Card and Voucher Association's (UKGCVA) Q2 Ernst & Young Market Report, voucher sales in Q2 have shown their sharpest growth ever recorded, driven by impressive gains across the board. Reported UKGCVA voucher sales on a like-for-like basis have shown exceptional growth of 22% in Q2 2010 to...
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