PORTLAND, OR — (Marketwire) — 07/20/11 — , the digital eGift card company, today announced the release of its Mobile Wallet Conversion Platform, for securely converting plastic gift cards into digital forms of payment by inserting and leveraging a 2D barcode on the back of a plastic gift card. Giftango has assembled the infrastructure needed to help bring merchants, incentive houses, plastic card printers, and virtual payment technology companies together to drive consumer adoption of the mobile wallet.
The patent-pending platform features an API module for physical card printers, enabling them to create secure 2D barcodes, a free merchant-branded mobile gift card portal, and an API built by Giftango specifically for merchants and mobile wallet creators.
Travel Tags, a leading provider of gifting and plastic card and specialty printing, will add the 2D Barcode features to any future plastic cards, and sponsor the entry level mobile functionality at no cost to merchants. In addition, the free gift card portal can be branded and will allow merchants to offer consumers gift card balance data, transaction history, access to promotional opportunities offered by the merchant, and ultimately the option to add the card to the consumers preferred mobile wallet.
“Companies like PayPal, Google, Apple and others are working hard with merchants to make adoption of the mobile wallet a reality, and digital gifting plays a key role in making this pervasive,” said David Nelsen, CEO, Giftango. “Until today, nobody has been able to figure out a secure and cost-effective way to turn traditional plastic gift cards into an easy-to-use, secure, and seamless digital gift offering. We are excited to bring such a solution to the merchants, consumers, printers and wallet providers at a time when digital gifting is really hitting its stride.”
The plastic printer is given access to a secure API allowing them to convert plastic card data into a secure 2D barcode that they then print on the back of the plastic. Merchants distribute their new gift cards and consumers scan the barcode with their smart phones, which pulls up a branded gift card portal designed for the merchant. The consumer is now able to not only view balance data and transaction history, but also is able to instantaneously convert the card to digital, re-gift the card from its plastic form as a digital gift to a friend or family member and more. Multiple security elements are employed to ensure brand integrity and disallow improper use of the 2D code. Just placing a 2D Barcode on the back of the card without a platform encrypting and controlling the process will yield unintended consequences for the merchant. The Giftango platform is composed of six major elements:
Printer API — This allows the printers to securely create the encrypted codes
Mobile App — This branded application allows the consumer to utilize the barcodes
Administration Suite — This is a hosted administrative area so merchants can understand the reporting and utilization of the system
Merchant Mobile API — This allows merchant to utilize the barcode for their own mobile apps
Wallet Platform & API — This allows a mobile wallet provider to leverage the system
Processor Integration — Giftango-s integration with 14 gift card processors in the US and Canada allows for real time communication with the user account.
“We hope to see the other plastic printers take the same approach as Travel Tags,” said Nelsen. “We feel Giftango can bring the printers in the Global market a model that helps them participate with this convergence to digital without being afraid of it. They will have the opportunity to leverage the same patent pending platform as Travel Tags, which is now six years in the making.”
Travel Tags, an IGH Solutions company, is the leader in plastic card printing, personalization and fulfillment with a special emphasis on gift, loyalty, and membership cards. IGH Solutions offers industry-leading design, marketing and manufacturing expertise in creating custom card programs from initial design to individual consumer personalization, packaging, and fulfillment.
Giftango Corporation, founded in 2005, has redefined gifting with its innovative delivery of virtual eGift cards to email and mobile phones. Merchants utilize the Giftango platform to power e-commerce sales, a wide variety of promotions as well as distribution through 3rd parties.
Giftango-s Channel Partner solutions give loyalty and incentive companies the ability to add virtual gift card fulfillment to their existing user interface for a wide variety of national brands. Giftango is integrated with more than a dozen gift card processors and has patent-pending technology. Giftango delivers virtual eGift products across more processors and brands than any competitor in the market.
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Mike Fletcher
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Phone: 1.877.443.8264
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