In the spotlight with... Tranxactor

As experts in loyalty, CRM and closed-loop payments systems with a powerful leading edge cloud platform, we asked Tranxactor how the UK Gift Card market compares to New Zealand’s and what’s in the pipeline for 2018.

How did the business start?

Tranxactor was established in 2002 in New Zealand, and now has offices operating in Auckland, Sydney and London. The company set out to develop a single platform that could deliver a range of added-value processing services to retailers, focusing on Gift, Prepay and Loyalty solutions. Tranxactor pioneered the gift card market in NZ, and today is the dominant force providing services for many of the major brand retailers, from shopping malls, through supermarkets to specialty retail and QSR. We also service a number of large- scale loyalty programmes in Australia, Asia, and the UK.

How does the UK Gift Card market compare to New Zealand’s?

In reality, the markets are not too different, except the scale of course! NZ was an early adopter of EFTPOS, so plastic gift cards became the norm very quickly. The major difference in the markets is the much smaller corporate gifting component compared to the UK. Other than that, consumer gifting behaviour is very similar.

You are launching your first fully digital UK Gift Card solution – tell us more!

Yes, we are very excited about our new eGIFT product. We know that developing a digital gift platform could be quite daunting and costly for most retailers, so our solution enables any retailer to enter the digital age, even if they have an existing plastic gift card offering. Tranxactor’s eGIFT is a 'plug and play' web portal with options for digital gift via SMS or email. We provide management tools including an in-built payment gateway as well as the ability to communicate with buyers and recipients. The eGIFT portal also has the functionality for bulk order management.

As you say, we are launching our first site in the UK very soon which includes full integration with mobile as a complete end-to-end package. Watch this space.

What do you hope to achieve?

Good question! With our extensive experience in the business we intend to carve a niche for ourselves in the UK/EU market with our particular brand of product, service and method of operation. We see convergence as the way of the future, so from our single platform, we can provide a centralised solution for gift, loyalty and digital marketing for retailers. We believe this is a unique offering at the right time in this marketplace as more retailers recognise the opportunity to use gift for customer acquisition and retention.

What recent work are you most proud of?

Naturally we are delighted to have achieved four nominations for our clients in the forthcoming 2018 Loyalty Magazine Awards. But really, our pride does not come from a single event - every day we deliver cost effective innovative solutions to our clients around the world that gets results, and that makes us very proud.

Biggest opportunities and challenges in the sector?

We see our opportunities lie in digital and the convergence of gift and loyalty. Our challenges are very much being perceived as the 'new players on the block', a perception that we intend to change! By the way, we have been providing gift and loyalty solutions for over 15 years and the underlying platform for Subway Subcard across the UK and Europe for 10 years, servicing thousands of stores and millions of cardholders, so we are not quite 'the new players'.

What do you think will be the impact of GDPR on the retail sector?

GDPR is a big wake-up call for retail. The days of gathering and holding buckets of personal data are over. However, we see that GDPR offers a huge opportunity for retailers to re- invigorate their loyalty programmes, re-establish contact with members to get consents, and restructure the way they gather and manage data. But they must move fast! Tranxactor happens to have a loyalty platform that is GDPR-ready and able to consolidate databases for easier compliance and management. While the clock is certainly ticking, it is not too late to talk to us.

To learn more about Tranxactor, please get in touch by emailing sales.uk@tranxactor.com For more info, please visit our website www.tranxactor.com