New digital gifting technology to make it easier for organisations to support local with staff rewards

Fintech Miconex has launched new digital gifting technology in Ireland to enable organisations to easily reward their staff with local gift cards.

The technology, introduced in October, allows organisations to send digital e-cards versions of Town & City Gift Cards online to multiple recipients at once. Organisations can also choose to send their gift cards immediately or on a future date. Recipients are then able to ‘tap to pay’ with a range of local businesses including retail, hospitality, health & beauty, leisure & attractions and services.

Miconex operates local Town & City Gift Card programmes across Ireland in Ballinrobe, Carndonagh, Drogheda, Letterkenny, Sligo and Waterford, with new programmes set to launch pre Christmas in Wexford, Tipperary, Limerick, Kilkenny and Donegal Town.

The cards – which can be spent with big brands and independent businesses in specific towns and cities – are popular for employee rewards with organisations including The Riverside Hotel, Arrotek and Compupac using the cards.

The introduction of the new digital e-card technology echoes key industry trends with the GCVA reporting that digital gift card sales overtook physical gift card sales for the first time in 2024, an increase of 17.1%, largely driven by the employee benefit market.

In Miconex 2024 research with over 4,000 organisations, employees and consumers, 84% of organisations said corporate social responsibility has become more important to their organisation over the past 12 months and 89% said supporting local businesses/their community was important to their organisation.

Support for local is also strong with employees. 94% of employees said it is important that the organisation they work for supports local businesses.

Colin Munro, managing director of Miconex, said: “Ireland has a unique employee reward and incentive culture with the Irish Revenue’s Small Benefit Exemption Scheme allowing organisations to gift pay rolled employees and directors up to two small non-cash benefits each year up to a value of €1,000, increasing to €1,500 in January 2025.

“Organisations in Ireland are evolving their reward and incentive strategies, putting increased focus on the 3 Cs of community support, CSR and choice for their teams. Our investment in digital gift card technology is key to our mission of making it easy for organisations to make the move to a local gift card that blends support for local with unbeatable local choice.”

See more stories here.