DO GIFTCARDS MAKE CENTZ?
Do you have unspent gift cards? Are you still worried about the remaining balance in gift cards that cannot be used totally? Gift cards are the most popular form of a prepaid product sold in the USA. In 2016 alone, $160 billion dollars of gift cards in the United States, and $750 billion worldwide, have been sold, and up to 20% of them have never be redeemed. Centz, based in Denmark is the first company to leverage and apply blockchain technology to fundamentally change the gift card industry forever.
Centz’s creation of a universal gift card registry will be blockchain based and represent a chance to reimagine existing businesses, and create new business opportunities. This is where not only the identity of each gift card holder will be registered, but also where every gift card, reward and loyalty credit will be placed, onto the Centz mobile wallet.
However, the recent explosion in the use of gift cards has created a situation where millions of people have multiple unused gift cards with fractional balances that now sit abandoned and unused in homes all around the world.
According to a Blackhawk Network survey, 53% of shoppers receive cards and forget about them and 26% of shoppers receive cards for a retailer, restaurant or other merchant that they don’t frequent. 97% of those with unused gift cards had up to 10 unused gift card.
The surge in gift card purchases has proved hugely profitable for the retailers that issue them and the Credit CARD Act did not do much to address what happens when the less than the face value of a gift card is used and then the fractional balance sit in the junk drawer in perpetuity.
Jon Bricken, CEO of CENTZ, says, “What is interesting is that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows companies to take unused gift-card money as income (breakage) once they can reasonably say the card won’t be redeemed, but there’s no set time limit. Many consumers do not use gift cards that they are given, resulting in unexercised customer rights, commonly known as breakage. We are giving the money back to the intended recipient.”
Bricken continued, “Retailers have recognized that it is increasingly to their benefit to sell more and more gift cards as up to 20% will never be redeemed and subsequently those unused funds can flow directly to the bottom line without having to deliver any goods or services.”
Ronny Boesing, CEO of OpenLedger agrees that Centz has found an ingenious solution to a genius system, stating, “Centz understands this as an opportunity to unlock or decouple these funds and turn them into universal forms of currency transfer and or payment worldwide. We believe this business model will give Centz the ability to unlock a large portion of this huge, multi billion-dollar market.”
The ITO for Centz will be announced shortly. Stay tuned.
