GiftCard Partners Blog

Wellness programs are a fantastic way for businesses to monitor their employees health, and control health care costs.  84% of employers and health plans across the country have at least one wellness program, and 91% expect to have wellness plans in place within the next 12 months, according to a survey conducted by the Continuum Care Alliance.  At TeamHealth in Tennessee employees are offered significant rewards including $50 quarterly health care credits for good performance on a health risk assessment test administered online.  Wellness programs are gaining popularity because they provide results in conserving revenue for businesses.  For more information on wellness programs and their expanded implementation click
here.

"The Commonwealth of Virginia has started using prepaid cards to help get money into the hands of the people of who needed them. One reason was cost savings, savings of up to .60 cents an item, a typical direct expense on payment mechanisms." Gift cards can help single parent families, the unemployed, the homeless and needy. The panel discussion was today @ the Prepaid Expo in Orlando. Visit
Live from the Prepaid Expo - Government Update to read the overview and learn about the challenges, the benefits to cardholders, how prepaid cards improve peoples' lives, and more.

A look at mobile migration, fraud, closed- and open-loop convergence, and the technological crossroads impeding progress By Marc Dresner, IIR USA

QR (or Quick Response) codes are those little squares appearing more and more frequently on consumer products all over the country, they allow smartphone users to collect data about the product they appear on, but they also have a potential connection to gift cards. One application of QR codes on Dole Salad kits sold at certain Price Chopper locations, encouraged loyal customers who received a post card (with the QR code) to scan it for a chance to win a $500 Price Chopper gift card. The potential in the growing mobile gift card market to also tie the growing use of consumer product QR codes creates yet another innovative way mobile gift card technology is finding its consumers in their natural habitat. Where would you like to see potential to connect QR codes to mobile gift cards? Leave us a comment! And for more info on the Dole Salad promotion see this
article.

45 Percent of active mobile phone uses have indicated that they would be interested in using their mobile phones to utilize the value of gift cards, as well as pay for goods and services.  This statistic is especially interesting because in the same survey 73 percent of respondents also indicated they had significant concerns regarding privacy and identity theft in using mobile technology.  This shows that mobile technology is going to become more and more important to the gift card industry, and the benefits are clearly outweighing the risks, even with the technology being so new.  For more information on the growing mobile market for gift cards check out this Iewy News
article