A commitment to positively impacting people, places and businesses was the driver for Miconex being honoured at the recent PayTech Awards, held on 28 June at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London, in association with Fintech Futures.

The company operates over 200 local gift card programmes worldwide, including the Scotland Loves Local Gift Card in partnership with Scotland’s Towns Partnership. These programmes encourage local spending by allowing the cards to be used at both national and independent businesses.

In the past year, Miconex has focused on corporate rewards and incentives, providing businesses with a way to align their rewards with their CSR strategy by supporting local communities.

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.

The local gift cards are  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.”