Dubai: Japan’s digital gift card marketplace Amaten has zeroed in on Dubai for its first overseas presence. It comes after the company notched up sales of $100 million.
The Amaten platform currently list the Top 25 global merchants’ gift cards - the likes of Amazon, Apple, Rakuten and Google - in the Japanese market.
It will soon allow any merchant to issue gift cards, thus encouraging buyers to purchase them for potential, thus “keeping businesses under financial support during slow economic activity”.
Since 2019, the gift card market generated profits worth $617 billion, and projected to reach a “revised size of $2.7 trillion by 2027 as demand for going cashless is accelerating during COVID-19 era.
“Retailers increasingly refer to adoption of digital gift cards, yet they struggle with technical errors that make their cards easily compromised to be used multiple times, causing financial losses,” the company said in a statement.
Legacy issues
That is in addition to more common issues, where gift cards have limited purchasing options and tight expiry dates.
Amaten fits out its digital gift cards with blockchain integration. “This provides a great advantage for merchants and consumers from security standpoint, as they’ll be able to trace gift cards ensuring that it’s not compromised, as blockchain will ensure highest level of data encryption,” the statement added.
Amaten was also among the first marketplaces worldwide to accept Bitcoin. Conversely, users can redeem unwanted gift cards to cash, thus tackling the issue of unused cards that adds up to $1billion in losses globally every year.
