Leverage: new gift card management site launching

[mandy]

Gift cards are expected to be the most widely-given gift this year, with 69 percent of consumers planning to buy them according to one survey. The annual value of gift cards in the U.S. is estimated to reach $100 billion next year, and about 27 percent  of people who get a gift card still have not redeemed it one year later. That came to $8 billion in unredeemed money in 2006.

Gift cards are a big, inefficient business. A new startup called Leverage wants to help you manage all of those gift cards with a service it is launching next week (probably on Thursday). On Leverage, you will be able to register all of your gift cards and keep track of how much you have left or stored on each one. You will also be able to buy gift cards, or swap them with others (like Swapagift). The site will also let you manage all of your loyalty reward programs, such as frequent-flyer or frequent-stay plans. To get people to register cards on the site, it will pay “interest” on the value stored on the cards (3.2 percent for cards bought through the site, and about 1 percent for cards bought elsewhere)...

full article: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/23/man...-leverage/

the Leverage website: http://www.leveragecard.com/home.htm