Gift cards are moving beyond retail and rewards programs—now, regulators are exploring how they can serve as an entry point into investing.
The use cases for gift cards have continued to expand, especially as prepaid products have become an integral component of many organizations’ loyalty and incentives programs.
The versatility of these solutions has prompted the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to propose an innovative framework that leverages gift cards and prepaid instruments to attract new investors. Under this model, gift card recipients would be able to convert their balances into shares of a mutual fund.
SEBI has outline several parameters for this effort. For example, prepaid accounts would be funded exclusively through electronic funds transfers or via India’s popular UPI real-time payments system.
The regulator has also proposed a transaction cap at 50,000 rupees (roughly $537). While this may appear modest from an investment standpoint, it presents substantial long-term growth potential.
“The move in India authorizing the simple inclusion of prepaid cards to fund long-term investments highlights the power of giving, backed by the security of prepaid cards,” said Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy & Research. “By allowing prepaid to be used as a gifting vehicle for investments, India will enable opportunity for underrepresented communities to begin their investment journeys.”
More Than a Cash Equivalent
Fostering financial inclusion is another key objective of SEBI’s strategy. Prepaid solutions offer a compelling alternative to cash by enabling unbanked and underbanked individuals to participate in the digital economy. This is one of the reasons nonprofit organizations are increasingly adopting gift cards for aid distribution.
Among other benefits, digital gift cards offer immediate delivery and are trackable. Perhaps more importantly, they can be tailored for specific use cases, such as limited spending to select brands or approved categories—or enabling conversion into mutual fund shares.
From Gift to Long-Term Investment
All these benefits underscore why gift cards continue to evolve and find new applications. While India’s approach plan is noteworthy, it is far from an outlier.
“It should be noted that there are other great examples of similar use of prepaid vehicles for investment in other global markets,” Hirschfield said. “In the U.S., givers can fund a recipients 529 tax-advantaged education savings plans through organizations like Gift of College. Small gifts into these programs create opportunity for the recipient to grow those gifts into meaningful, long-term investments.”
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