AVS and epay provide the gift card platform for the new ECE centre voucher

Bayreuth / Martinsried, 04.04.2024:

Full-service payment provider epay and the city voucher specialist AVS are supporting ECE Marketplaces GmbH & Co. KG in their comprehensive relaunch of the centre voucher in around 90 shopping centres in Germany. Center vouchers have become established as a very popular gift over the years, among both private and commercial customers. The gift card program for the center vouchers is now being reimplemented with a view to the future, using a technical platform that is already proven on the market and with a new service provider team on board.

The new center vouchers, which can be accepted by individual stores and restaurants in the shopping centers, will be integrated at the sites by means of a technical connection via AVS, in the same way as the existing payment terminals; processing will be handled in the background via epay’s technical processing platform. Issuing of the voucher will also be managed by epay, along with all financial processes and clearing to distribution locations on one side and the connected acceptance locations on the other.

With this design ECE is building on a technical solution that utilizes the proven infrastructure of cashless payment transactions and the retail checkout landscape – united through the partnership with AVS and epay. In conjunction with the 30+ city voucher programs which are already active and using the AVS solution, this will create the largest voucher network in the German retail sector.

Extensive organizational and technical optimizations will be implemented in connection with the relaunch, resulting in significantly more numerous, and more flexible, marketing possibilities for ECE. This supports ECE’s stated objective of using center vouchers as a marketing tool to steer significantly more sales into businesses operated by its rental partners in shopping centers and also to further digitalize the customer journey in a meaningful way. Among other things, the voucher will not only be available at the POS in future, but also via Click&Collect or Print@Home. The new centre voucher also has advantages such as easier credit enquiry and versatile technical integration at the POS. Voucher marketing via employers in the centre environment will also be an important component. From 2025 ECE will be offering solutions that enable employers to issue center vouchers to their employees and regularly load them with tax-incentivized perks.

The onboarding to the new voucher platform of the 8,000+ businesses in the ECE shopping centers is well under way. Many large chainstore owners have already signed up to the City Voucher program supported by AVS.

And for all other retailers, restaurateurs and service providers interested in becoming a location that accepts the center voucher, the barrier to participation is low because the solution from AVS and epay does not usually require any additional recording devices at the POS. In fact, many providers of checkout solutions for the retail sector already offer plugins for voucher acceptance on this platform.

About epay

epay, a segment of Euronet, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), is a leading global provider of payment processing and prepaid solutions that processed more than 3.8 billion transactions in 2023. The company has built an extensive network of retailer touchpoints with 821,000 point-of-sale terminals in 62 countries that connects brands with consumers all over the world. The company offers a diverse ecosystem of services, products and solutions supporting the distribution of Payment and Branded Payments for more than 1,000 brand partners via Commerce, eCommerce and mCommerce solutions. For more information visit www.epayworldwide.com.

About AVS: Solutions for vouchers, customer loyalty and tourism

AVS develops digital customer loyalty, billing and voucher systems for retail, tourism and publishing companies. The value chain ranges from design and in-house programming to ongoing operation and fulfilment via the company’s own lettershop. AVS has built up particular expertise in multi-partner systems, which require flexible, customised connection solutions and intelligent clearing. Our customers benefit from our extensive network with existing interfaces to cash register and payment transaction providers.

The prepaid solutions from AVS are closed-loop systems in which merchants are connected individually via the POS system or terminal without using overarching card schemes. As a rule, no separate hardware is required.

From Bayreuth and Munich, 180 dedicated employees support more than 500 system customers in the core sectors of retail and tourism with around 200,000 connected PoS, primarily in the DACH region. We benefit from 60 years of experience with customer loyalty systems through our sister company BSW (www.bsw.de) and a good 30 years in which we have organised and operated multi-partner systems as a service provider. Further information can be found at www.avs.de .

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