A commitment to positively impacting people, places and businesses was the driver for Miconex being honoured at the recent PayTech Awards, in association with Fintech Futures.
The global fintech operates over 200 local Town & City Gift Card and Downtown Gift Card programs around the world, plus Scotland Loves Local Gift Card programs alongside Scotland’s Towns Partnership, and received the PayTech: A Force For Good award at the London awards ceremony in June.
Miconex works alongside business improvement districts/areas, local authorities, chambers of commerce and organisations to help places to convert shop local sentiment into increased local spend. The physical or digital cards can be spent with a mix of national brands with independent businesses across a range of sectors, a USP within the industry.
The accolade for Miconex comes after a busy 12 months for the operator, including a focus on corporate rewards and incentives, giving organisations a means to align their rewards and incentives with their CSR strategy by making it easy for their people to support local.
In Miconex’s 2023 research with organisations, 94.9% said supporting local was important when planning rewards/incentives and 91.5% said support for local contributes to their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts.
Firms including Ocado Retail, Shell and Port of Aberdeen and McDonald’s Leicester are some of the large firms choosing local with staff rewards and incentives.
Through its network of programs, Miconex has also leveraged its local Gift Card technology to address some of society’s most pressing concerns, from the cost of living crisis to homelessness, tenancy sustainment to giving charities and non-profit organisations a way to support their service users with dignity.
In 2023, Cambridge BID collaborated with Pay It Forward, a Cambridge created non-profit supporting people in need, using the Love Cambridge Gift Card to distribute funds to service users via local charities. Service users could use the Love Cambridge Gift Card as they wished, such as buying clothes for an interview, food or items for a shared tenancy property.
Another charity using Miconex’s local Gift Cards is Back On The Map, a Sunderland charity supporting 700 families in one of the most deprived areas of the country. Using the Sunderland Gift Card, Back On The Map were able to direct support to working people on low incomes during the cost of living crisis, benefiting a range of local businesses that offer employment for local people.
Miconex’s local Gift Cards are also used by a range of housing associations, including non-profit social landlord Cernach Housing Association who used the Glasgow Gift Card to support tenants facing crisis circumstances to stay in their homes and also offer tangible support to tenants in the cost of living crisis.
Colin Munro, managing director of Miconex said: “The Gift Card industry has seen significant changes over recent years, including the emergence of localism. A big trend we’re seeing is for big brands and organisations to choose local, to take an active role in the success of their communities. And this is a trend that will continue to build into 2025 and beyond as firms align their R&I strategy with their CSR strategy.
“With their intrinsic support for local, Miconex’s local Gift Cards were already a PayTech for Good, but over recent years, we have fully utilised the capabilities of our local Gift Cards to meet a diverse set of economic and societal challenges, in partnership with our network of programs who continue to innovate and explore the capabilities of local Gift Cards to enact social change.
“At Miconex, we will continue to fully embrace the possibilities offered when we blend choice with collaboration and community, positively impacting our places, making local shopping the first choice and working together to ensure our communities thrive.”