What Does the Fintech Revolution Mean for Shopping Mall Gift Cards?

What Does the Fintech Revolution Mean for Shopping Mall Gift Cards?

Colin Davidson is the Head of Region at Fintech Payment Solutions. He has been in the banking and payments sector for nearly 30 years, covering acquiring, issuing and cybersecurity. Over the past four years, Colin and his team have successfully launched and managed some of the largest gift card programmes in the Middle East.

The pandemic forced a change in behaviours – including how we interact with other people, businesses and the services they deliver. For retailers, this means an opportunity to not just re-open and start growing again but to innovate, improve the overall shopping experience and accelerate this growth. A metric for tracking people’s confidence in returning to the shops is the growth in gift cards – after all, you’d never give someone a gift unless you thought they’d be able to make good use of it! Globally, the gift card market is set to be worth US$424.21 billion in 2022 and is predicted to hit US$510 billion by 2025. But just what is driving this growth? Clearly, there is an inevitable “Post-Covid bounce” as shops re-open and the volumes of shoppers return. But there’s also innovation, and in particular technological innovation, creating new opportunities. In banking and payments, ‘fintech’ is transforming many of the traditional processes and experiences. For retailers, this fintech revolution is also transforming the gift card market around the world – an impact that is also beginning to be seen across the Middle East.

COLIN DAVIDSON

Head of Region Fintech Payment Solutions

The Fintech Future

At its heart, Fintech have been focused on disrupting the status quo by delivering a better, more convenient user experience for end customers. This includes immediate access to all of their financial information and services anywhere through mobile apps accessible on an ordinary smartphone and being able to pay using the same device or even a watch or wearable. While start-ups were the first to offer many of these services, they are now mainstream with banks and payments companies of all sizes embracing similar solutions. Innovations like Apple Pay and Google Pay have also helped increase acceptance even further. Shift to Contactless

The shift away from cash to contactless payments has been a long-time coming. The past 12 months, however, have seen this trend reach an inflexion point, with acceptance of the ‘tap to pay’ approach becoming close to universal in markets around the world. While this transition was happening pre-Covid, the pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the move, with contactless payments seen as safer by consumers and removing the hassle of cash handling and processing for retailers. The Gift Card 2.0

For retailers and shopping centres, all of these changes mean one thing – reduced customer friction at checkouts, making it quicker and easier to pay. However, while spending behaviour has changed, many in the gift card sector have been left behind, not fully benefitting from these latest innovations and still relying on an earlier generation of products. By bringing this fintech approach into the gift card sector, it opens up a world of possibilities for retailers and mall brands that can help delight customers and increase revenues.