It was great to see so many members at The VA Conference on Tuesday 22nd April.
Total delegates were 244, up from last year at 225.  The day went really well and throughout the day there was a real buzz in the room.  Several newcomers to the conference were overwhelmed by the atmosphere and the friendliness; this shows what a great industry we all work in.

 

Tim Danaher from Retail Week kicked off with a realistic look at retail today – not a pretty picture.  The vernal view from leaders of the industry is that things will get worse before they get better. However he concluded that retail spending would be up in 2008 compared to 2007 by £7.5bn, making retail worth £289bn.

 

Yvonne West of Sainsbury’s warned us not to get too wrapped up in technology and keep the customer the main focus of any activity; Yvonne called this ‘The Customer Bear Trap’.  In 2006 eFunds & ICM Research stated 76% of consumers were unfamiliar with prepaid but 49% felt that prepaid would be a way of restricting spending and reducing the risk of debt.

 

Following Yvonne we opened a section of the conference titled ‘what is prepaid and am I in it?'  We were very pleased to be joined by Marilyn Bochicchio, CEO Paybefore (a leading prepaid publication) and former President of the Network Prepaid Branded Card Association in the USA.  Marilyn was able to give an independent view of the prepaid market and also share learnings from the USA.  Marilyn then led a panel discussion with short presentations from several key players in prepaid.  This gave the audience an insight in to the differing streams within prepaid.  Chris Oulds from ALCO gave the first presentation on prepaid in transportation.  The government is changing the way those eligible for concessionary travel actually get their free journey.  If you are eligible for concessionary travel then you will receive a smart card over the next few months.  As well as facilitating the actual journey the smart card will also have e-purse built in functionality.  These e-purses will need to be managed and retailers will also need to know how to accept these cards as a form of payment.  Jamie King used the IDT Prime Card as a case study for general purpose prepaid cards.  Jamie sited the biggest challenges as educating the consumer and gaining high level visibility as well as engaging retailers to sell prepaid products.  Product specific gift cards are also entering the market and David Tymm of i-movo explained the principles behind the EROS card, used for pre-purchasing The London Evening Standard.  David also gave examples of how mobile phone technology was impacting on the market.  The corporate market is also taking advantage of developments in prepaid.  Mark Simon from Tuxedo Money took us through corporate supplications including, payroll cards, expense cards and employee benefits.  Another prepaid application, and one of the longest established, is foreign exchange.  Travelex is a market leader in this sector; Chris Jacklin showed the developments in this sector and the conferences headline sponsor, 3V Transactional Services fielded Niki Akhurst who explained the basis behind the 3V proposition.  A secure, prepaid method of payment for internet shopping.

 

Dominic Peachey from The Financial Services Authority highlighted the minefield that is regulation.  Currently the EU is reassessing various electronic money regulations and Dominic used his session and the following Q&A to gain a view from the audience of how the current regulation is affecting business.  He highlighted a number of basic definitions such as what is a gift card and how the answer to this basic question can affect the treatment of the payment instrument in relations to regulation.  

 

Robert Courtneidge from Salans, the VA’s law partner, gave a light hearted look at the Legal and Regulatory Issues by following the lifecycle of a butterfly.  During his presentation Robert showed the value chain in prepaid – and how many parties need to make money through the value chain.

 

Following a great networking lunch Rachelle Smith from Prepaid Technologies was joined by Simon Barnett of PizzaExpress, Jennifer Lashua from Starbucks, Caroline Watson from Gift Days Out and Anthony Graham from 360 Money; all these players have gift cards and are the new breed of non-traditional retailer who have entered the gift card market.  

 

The rest of the conference was given over to ‘Developing Sustainable Sales & Marketing Strategies’.  Keith Brand from Tefisto Partners kicked off with a presentation on selling gift cards in-stores.  Keith’s pointers include card design, packaging and positioning.  Natasha Toothill from payzone and deputy chairman of The VA joined Yvonne West from Sainsbury’s and Ian Sanders from WHSmith; together they talked through gift card centres from a retail host perspective.  As Sainsbury’s and WHSmith were first to market with the mall concept, Ian and Yvonne have 18+ plus months experience of hosting a mall in their stores.  Clearly there is some way to go with the mall concept in the UK but both Ian and Yvonne were very confident about the future.

The corporate market for vouchers has been very strong in the UK and Graham Sellers from Jordan Media lead a group in a Q&A session identifying the status of the current corporate market.  Helen Child from G-T-P gave a card processors view, Manoj Jadeja from John Lewis gave a retailers perspective, Daniel Gillborn from Grass Roots have his incentive agents experience and Tracey Norton from Ernst & Young was able to go through the basics on tax and national insurance on vouchers and cards.  The final session in this section lead by Tim Bishop from lastminute.com looked at virtual spending.  The impact of mobile phone technology and on-line spending is shaping the prepaid market, experts in this area include Don Cameron from Mobiqa, Stephen Rothwell from Eagle Eye Technology and Niki Akehurst from 3V, they were joined by fraud experts ReD represented by Amanda Mickelburgh and Euan Macdonald from John Lewis.

 

The conference sessions were rounded off by Director General, Andrew Johnson who gave an overview of the vouchers and gift card market today, including the latest industry sales data; and Tony Craddock from Giftex Prepay, complete with his trendy shades, profiling how to build resilience to risk in prepaid.

 

The day finished with a drinks and supper reception which meant the networking continued well into the evening.............and in to the night at various west end pubs for some people......