Edenred India: A well-timed switch from paper vouchers to digital cards

Paper vouchers have been a favourite among organisations for employee benefit or meal allowance and B2B gifting. But with the new norm from the Reserve Bank of India, we may not see them around after this year. The RBI recently announced that all entities issuing paper vouchers for B2B have time till 31st December 2017 to stop doing so.

This comes as a huge blow to companies in voucher business as it means a lot of restructuring and realignment. It is a two-fold challenge that the companies have to tackle, first at their own end where they need to switch to digital cards if they have to survive in the new system. The second challenge is its smooth operation among end users which is dependent on the acceptability of the vendors and end users alike. For companies already using paper vouchers for their employees and associates, it would mean shifting to a whole new process by the end of this year assuming the next nine months would be enough for this smooth transition.

This big announcement by the RBI, however, has little effect on Edenred, the inventors of Ticket Restaurant® Meal Vouchers, who made the smart shift from paper to digital cards way back in 2014. They are the first movers in India to make the shift to this model which is highly scalable as it can be used at all Edenred affiliated Ticket Restaurant® Meal Card outlets across the country and online portals that accept MasterCard.

With more than 24,000 affiliates in India, this digital meal card covers more than 8,00,000 transactions per month. It is also supported by a GPS based mobile app, Ticket India, which covers affiliated outlets and offers. It can also be used to keep track of individual transaction details by the users.

Some other pointers about Edenred:

• Have over 50 years of experience in corporate and public benefits, operating out of 42 countries worldwide.
• We are the inventor of Ticket Restaurant(r) Meal Vouchers.
• World’s leading issuer of prepaid services delivering solutions in the areas of employee benefits, public benefits, rewards & loyalty solutions and expense management.
• Operating in India since 1996.
• Services more than 3,500 corporate customers and public institutions with over 2.5 million beneficiaries using their innovative products and services every day.
• 1,200+ new clients acquired on digital meal cards.
• Has more than 5,00,000 beneficiaries using Ticket Restaurant® Meal Cards in just a span of 3 years.
• More than 65% of clients have already converted from vouchers to digital meal cards in the last 3 years.

Apart from Ticket Restaurant® Meal Cards, other digital offerings from Edenred include Ticket Compliments® Gift Card, Ticket Compliments® Rewards Card and Ticket Restaurant® Plus Cafeteria Card.