Miconex’s objective is simple: providing communities, be they towns, cities, downtowns or organisations, with a tangible means to retain spend in their local area, providing essential support for local businesses of all types and sizes. With Miconex, local and loyal shopping becomes not only easy for customers, but desirable, contributing to the evolution of high streets and downtowns around the world.
After developing the UK’s first city-wide gift card program Town & City Gift Cards in Perth in 2015, Miconex has gone on to become one of the fastest growing Scottish fintechs. Our Town & City Gift Card and Downtown Gift Card programs are active in over 150 places in the UK, Ireland, Canada and the USA. Over 10,000 businesses are part of our programs, with over £25million spent in local businesses to date.
Unlike competitors in the gift card industry, Miconex’s technology is place specific and backed by an experienced implementation team, with full technical program setup, materials, support and an industry leading client success program.
Miconex’s digital loyalty scheme Mi Rewards, created alongside loyalty platform Stampfeet, originated in Perth in 2018. Mi Rewards is a payment card linked loyalty scheme with customers receiving rewards when they use linked debit or credit cards in participating local businesses in their town or city.
Alongside consumer sales, Town & City Gift Cards are popular for employee incentives and rewards. Miconex picked up the award for best use of prepaid at the Incentive Awards in September 2020 and were awarded the prestigious Company of the Year accolade at the November 2021 Incentive Awards. Miconex were also presented with the Small to Medium Business of the Year award at the September 2022 Gift Card and Voucher Association (GCVA) Hall of Fame awards.
In October 2022, Miconex collected the Social Impact award at the Scottish Financial Technology awards 2022 in recognition of trailblazing initiatives to address socio-economic challenges and positively impact communities.
In 2022, Miconex continued the rollout of its new digital gifting technology for towns and cities, giving places the opportunity to meet the increasing demand for digital gift cards. Working alongside EML Payments Limited (ASX: EML), and utilising a new global Love Local brand, Miconex’s digital technology works though the Mastercard network. As of summer 2022, 28 towns and cities in the UK and Ireland have launched digital gift cards to date with Miconex.
In 2021, the Scottish Government backed the Town & City Gift Card system with the launch of a new Scotland Loves Local Gift Card for every local authority in Scotland. By summer 2022, Miconex had launched regional gift cards in over 30 Scottish regions, with almost £6 million in spend and almost 100,000 gift cards loaded.
Miconex’s first programs in Ireland launched in November 2020 in Ballinrobe and Drogheda. The success of our Irish programs led to expansion in the country. As of summer 2022, there are 5 Town & City Gift Card programs in Ireland.
In the latter part of 2021 and through 2022, Miconex gained significant traction in the Canadian market by building brand presence in the country through the success of existing programs. As of August 2022, there are 10 Downtown Gift Card programs in Canada, with many new programs due to launch in the latter part of 2022. In Canada, Miconex partnered with the Food Island Partnership in September 2020 to deliver the Canada’s Food Island Gift Card on Prince Edward Island, Canada’s smallest province, which has a population of 165,000. A $4.8 million project, over 100,000 Canada’s Food Island Gift Cards were sold in the first 18 months of the program. The program enabled the province to extend the tourist season, increase incremental consumer spend, increase Island brand awareness and engagement with consumers, and support businesses through covid-19 recovery.
In the US, Miconex successfully launched its first Downtown Gift Card programs in 2020 in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana and Virginia, leading to new program launches for 2021 and 2022 in Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York and Oregon. In August 2022, there are 12 Downtown Gift Card programs in the USA, with many new programs due to launch in the latter part of 2022.
Colin Munro – CEO
