The first of its kind, this new mobile app allows consumers to check the balance remaining on a gift card via their smartphones and enables card issuers to use mobile engagement to drive greater customer loyalty and revenue.

Kofax will demonstrate the gift card balance inquiry mobile app at FinovateSpring 2014, a showcase of cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations in San Jose, CA on April 29 and 30, 2014. The demonstration will show how consumers can use the camera in mobile devices to snap a picture of the back of a gift card and automatically send it via the cloud to the Kofax Mobile Capture Platform, which reads it, securely accesses the issuer's database and displays the gift card's remaining balance in near real time. This is a much faster and more convenient way for consumers to check gift card balances than asking an in store cashier to check the balance, calling the issuer to ask or entering data into an online portal or automated telephone system.

According to the CEB TowerGroup's 2013 gift card report, annual gift card use is growing and fast approaching $140 billion in volume, with $1.7 billion going unspent per year. With many states boosting revenue by collecting unused retail gift card funds under so-called "abandoned property" laws, retailers have significant motivation to help consumers spend those balances. Data from the study also shows that consumers spend on average 20-30% more when they use a gift card or apply gift card funds to retail purchases, another incentive for issuers to help consumers know their gift card balances.

"By offering a convenient way to check balances via smartphones, retailers can now make it easier for consumers to spend gift cards," stated Drew Hyatt, Senior Vice President of Mobile Applications at Kofax. "This is just one more value-added mobile service that card issuers using the Kofax Mobile Capture Platform can offer to increase customer loyalty and revenue."

The Kofax Mobile Capture Platform enables organizations to rapidly develop and deploy any number of mobile apps on a single platform that uses Kofax's patented and market leading image capture and perfection, real time data extraction and validation and analytics capabilities. Using this platform, organizations can speed time to market with mobile apps, achieve substantial cost savings, make better informed decisions to drive incremental revenue and free themselves of the undesirable vendor dependencies associated with alternative approaches. The Kofax Mobile Capture Platform turns smartphones into information capture devices, with more dynamic apps that meet customers where, when and how they want to engage.