Appreciate Group and CleverGift collaborate on UK digital gift card
British gifting and rewards company Appreciate Group and Irish digital contactless card provider CleverGift have partnered to create the UK’s first multi-brand digital gift card.
Available as of 2 December 2019, the digital gift card can be sent “instantly” via email, text, Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp to its recipient, who can add it to their digital wallet, access it through two-factor authentication and regularly check their balance.
There are 61 UK merchants to choose from so far
The ‘Select Digital Gift Card’ can be purchased and sent through HighStreetVouchers.com, and once activated they turn into a prepaid Mastercard.
With 61 merchants to choose from, just over half only allow recipients to spend the card online. Initial brands allowing purchases through the new card includes big British retailers John Lewis, Topshop, TK Maxx, Waterstones, Debenhams and Argos, as well as restaurant PizzaExpress and jeweler Ernest Jones.
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“We’re proud to be the first company in the UK to bring this type of technology to market,” says Appreciate Group’s CEO Ian O’Doherty.
“It’s a real game-changer in many ways as it completely reimagines how gift cards should work in a mobile-enabled world.”
CleverGift’s CEO and founder from Dublin, Kealan Lennon, is well aware “contactless payments and mobile wallets represent a huge – and growing – share of payments”.
Kealan thinks it’s about time the world “embrace this type of technology” in a mobile era where choice is everything.
