Gift cards make great stocking stuffers — just as long as you don’t stuff them in a drawer and forget about them after the holidays.
Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales.
Most of those gift cards will be redeemed. Paytronix, which tracks restaurant gift card sales, says around 70% of gift cards are used within six months.
But many cards — tens of billions of dollars’ worth — wind up forgotten or otherwise unused. That’s when the life of a gift card gets more complicated, with expiration dates or inactivity fees that can vary by state.
gift cards and virtual app balances allow companies to operate as unregulated banks, and take out massive loans using their unspent balance as collateral. It’s a clever way to avoid the typical regulations in holding client money
Never thought about it that way and didn’t know they could do that.
I assume it’s not literal. Just kind of functions that way in practice.
For Starbucks I believe it is literal that they operate more as a bank than a coffee chain