Popmoney's gift card service, the first of its kind in the industry, enables bank customers to send retailer gift cards from their bank accounts. Customers can send gift cards to a recipient by email, mobile number or mailing address. Banks offering Popmoney can provide the option to their customers through a simple upgrade of the service. The service is available in various configurations.

CashEdge has partnered with industry leader Blackhawk Network, a leading provider of prepaid gift cards for consumers and businesses, to launch the service. Gift cards from top U.S. retailers are available.

"Our mission aligns perfectly with CashEdge's mission for Popmoney gift cards - to simplify gift giving for consumers, and provide an easy, convenient way to send gifts through their online banking," said Talbott Roche, president, Blackhawk Network. "We are thrilled to partner with a leading innovator in online money movement to launch Popmoney gift cards in time for the holiday season. We are confident that Popmoney customers will love the added convenience of buying gifts for their friends and family through their Popmoney account."

CashEdge also today announced the launch of customizable email templates for Popmoney. The Popmoney gift email templates allow Popmoney users to make online payments more personal by embedding holiday messaging and other occasion-themed designs into payment notification emails.

Popmoney gift email templates are a seamless add-on to the existing Popmoney service, and are available at no additional cost to financial institutions offering Popmoney. By allowing senders to customize their Popmoney gift, these email templates will improve the individual user experience and in turn, drive further adoption for the bank. The templates are currently available in 15 different themes, including winter holidays, birthday, wedding, back to school, thank you, congratulations and others.

"At CashEdge, we're constantly i innovating and responding to emerging trends, and we've started to see a need for a more personalized P2P experience. Early on, we saw that a significant number of Popmoney payments currently were being sent as gifts," said Catherine Palmieri, Global Head of Product and Marketing at CashEdge. "By providing these new gift options, we're able to provide new transaction-based revenue opportunities to our clients and also give Popmoney users fun and customizable options that will enhance the gift-giving experience for both the sender and the recipient."

Popmoney is the first email and mobile P2P payments service to allow online and mobile banking customers to send money simply using a recipient's email, mobile number or bank account information. More than 170 banks are live with the service, including three of the top ten US Banks. Popmoney provides support for text messaging, WAP and downloadable mobile applications.