Ah but WE are different...

"This might work for the indies but the nationals won’t get involved"
“Our businesses won’t get involved, they are different”

They will, it's possible!  It obviously depends what you are asking them to do but if it’s meaningful, easy to understand, to communicate to others and simple to get involved with - they will get involved.

We use the existing Mastercard network to create local currencies for towns and cities in the form of local gift card programmes. When we help to setup a new Town/City gift card programme individual businesses ask us the same questions regardless of whether they are an indie or a national brand:

• What is it?  It’s a Mastercard prepay card
• How much does it costs me to accept it? There are no additional charges (same as a debit card transaction)
• Why should I get involved? Because there will be £10ks of gift cards out there in circulation and people will be looking for places to spend them.
• How do I get involved? Simply register, it takes 1 minute and then that’s it.  From then on you can accept the town/city gift card.

More than 170 different national brands and over 3,000 independent businesses accept the different town and city gift cards.

Here are a couple of great examples:
https://love-cambridgegiftcard.com/where-to-spend/
https://bathgiftcard.com/where-to-spend/

Town/City Gift Card programmes are designed to lock in spend for participating businesses, drive footfall, encourage advocacy and stimulate additional economic activity.

There are now more than 30 live programmes across the UK. If you would like to find out more, please contact Colin Munro at colin@mi-cnx.com, 07940 936 390. Or visit www.mi-cnx.com for more information.