| Personal Gift Credit Cards |
| By Credit Federal |
Published
10/27/2007
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Credit Card
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Visa Gift Cards Offer Personal Touch
With personal Visa gift cards, you can have your photo or special message printed on them.
Visa is after a larger share of the $90 billion gift credit card market, and will launch a personal service to let consumers add photos and engraved messages to their cards.
Customers will be able to design their own Visa gift card online, where they can upload personal pictures or use other images provided by Visa. The cards cost $5.95 each and can be loaded with $10 to $250. The website accepts all major credit cards and debit cards as payment. The personalized cards are then mailed either to the buyer or can be sent directly to the recipient.
Visa's new personalized card program is designed to regain some of the billions that have been diverted from the traditional credit card vertical. All the major credit card companies; including American Express, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover, already sell gift cards but Visa's new personalization offers greater attraction.
Why would Visa offer the personal touch? Spending on gift cards has grown at a 20% annualized rate since 2005, compared with about only 7% for unsecured credit cards. More than 75% of all consumers are expected to receive at least one gift card this year, but mainly it will be from cards issued by stores, restaurants and other such businesses.
Gift cards are a benefit for the companies that issue them. A main benefit is that not all recipients fully spend the $8 billion loaded onto such cards each year. Plus some cards carry hidden fees, including ones that penalize holders for not using them right away. One fee; for example, is the transaction fee which is charged for each purchase until the value is exhausted.
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