The demand for gift cards has increased during the last few months and the festival season witnesses the maximum sale of gift cards. Many companies are also using it to gift their employees. Gift cards may be a useful item to offer to someone you want to please purely for business reasons or please your dear ones.
Gift cards are prepaid cards supported by a magnetic strip that can be used at a number of merchant outlets across the country either for shopping, eating or for other purposes.These cards are also transferable and could be gifted to anyone. These cards can be loaded with any value between Rs 500 and Rs 50,000. Some banks have also given the flexibility of re-loading the gift cards. The card can be used at respective Bank’s ATMs for Balance Enquiry. It also has PIN number, which gives access to Gift Card for online transactions.
The gift cards come at a fee. Banks charge between Rs 50 and Rs 200 to issue gift cards. While the SBI is charging Rs 50, the HDFC Bank asks for Rs 100. There are discounts on the cards for bulk buyers.It’s not just the fee, banks also gain due to the increase in low cost deposits by marketing the cards aggressively.
In the past one week, two major banks — Central Bank and Corporation bank — came out with their gift cards, joining the State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC that already have similar products on offer. Most banks have tied up with payment gateways of Visa and MasterCard for this purpose. While the SBI has tied up with Visa for this purpose, Central Bank of India has done so with MasterCard.
The demand for gift cards has increased during the last few months and the festival season witnesses the maximum sale of gift cards.
Reference:
Banks make Gift Cards flavor diwali
