Gift Cards Become Instant Payout Option for Global Consumers

As the need for faster, cheaper and efficient payouts increase, there is a huge demand from corporations needing to transfer value to end users and enable use cases ranging from loyalty, employee rewards, rebates, remittances and refunds.

But according to Aron Alexander, CEO and founder at U.K.-based digital incentives platform operator WeGift, the current legacy payment infrastructure only allows brands to transfer that value through banking and credit card rails which are typically slow, expensive and complex.

“What we found is that this B2C payouts market where corporations are trying to send value en masse to people they serve is underserved and falling way behind in terms of payment technology and payment infrastructure,” Alexander told PYMNTS in an interview.

And that’s not even taking into account the significant growth in digital assets and the tokenization of assets, he added, pointing to an estimate by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) that asset tokenization will reach $16 trillion by 2030 — about 10% of global GDP.

To help brands tap into this trillion-dollar market and drive more spend, WeGift has built a three-sided marketplace where supply, demand and the API infrastructure integration needed to transfer any kind of stored value and spend is provided — all in a faster, secure and more efficient way than traditional payment methods.

“We’ve enabled these corporations to leverage our rails where we effectively move money over the internet in real time from a corporate wallet to the consumer wallet, simply by sending an email,” Alexander explained, adding that the individual receiving that value, be it a consumer, employee or member, can then redeem it at any participating merchant on their network.

Merchant Acceptance

So far, the firm, which operates in more than 30 countries, has managed to win over a significant number of corporations, boasting over 1,500 major brands in its portfolio including Airbnb, Nike, Instacart, Mint Mobile and Vodafone.

As it relates to multi-currency management, the firm’s technology enables customers to manage customer funds and make payouts securely to end customers in 20 currencies, removing any exposure to foreign exchange (FX) risks.

Moving forward, Alexander said the focus will be more about internationalization and reducing barriers across borders as well as adding more asset types to enable frictionless transfer of value between different wallets, for example.

Merchant acceptance would also be key, as they’ve seen an increase in demand from merchants who want to work with WeGift to accept and issue assets whether via a gift card, NFT, a subscription or a product-level token.

“The next step for us is to enrich our merchant network and provide merchant partners with more tools to be able to take advantage of digital currencies,” he said.

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