Hawk Incentives Launches Mastercard Prepaid Incentive Card for Mobile Wallets
Hawk Incentives, a Blackhawk Network business that provides rewards and incentive solutions, has unveiled a new open-loop Mastercard prepaid card that can be added to major mobile wallets.
Blackhawk’s Digital Pass technology underpins the mobile wallet-enabled cards, which are exclusively available to Hawk Incentives customers, the company says. Digital Pass also enables marketers to connect loyalty programs, gift cards and other offers to mobile wallets.
“The ability to connect your incentive or promotional reward to a wallet is a game-changing innovation,” says Theresa McEndree, vice president of marketing, Hawk Incentives. “With our Digital Pass technology, we enable our clients to extend brand engagement with their mobile-minded consumers. Additionally, our virtual Mastercard combines great options in a single reward: recipients can pick an online or physical reward and can store, manage and make payments with the reward using their mobile wallet. This flexibility helps our partners to deliver the right rewards to the right recipients.”
An email is delivered to the recipient within moments of the reward order being initiated, she adds. The recipient then has the option to choose a physical reward, digital delivery or have the reward provisioned directly to her mobile wallet of choice. If a physical card is issued, it can be added to the wallet just like any eligible plastic card by taking a picture of the card or entering the card information manually using the card-add feature.
“Alternatively, virtual Mastercards issued under this program may be added to the wallet by a new service called issuer push provisioning,” McEndree continues. “This is initiated by clicking a button on the virtual card site that launches the card-add process without requiring a physical card.”
Wirecard North America (formerly Citi Prepaid Services) won a 2017 Pay Award for its Samsung Pay Rewards Visa card, a virtual rewards prepaid card provisioned inside the mobile wallet, first introduced in 2016.
McEndree says Hawk Incentives program is different. “The use of Mobile Mastercard rewards through Hawk Incentives can be added to any major mobile wallet [not just Samsung] and use extends to rebates, retention/loyalty incentives, referral incentives and periodic ‘surprise and delight’ gifts,” she says. “These incentive products are only available on Mastercard and take advantage of a recent change by Mastercard allowing for single-value cards to be tokenized.”
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