Infineon Technologies AG launches two new secured prepaid tags for closed-loop gift cards, reducing the risk of tampering. These new solutions join Infineon’s secured EMV prepaid tag for open-loop gift cards.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission reported losses of $212 million for gift or reload cards in 2024. The new secured prepaid tags target closed-loop gift cards, which are processed in retailer-specific or closed-loop environments, and replace the need for visible codes, barcodes, or magnetic stripes with a secured chip using cryptographic mechanisms.

The chips can be accessed using near-field communication (NFC) devices by using a consumer’s phone authenticated with the necessary data, allowing both retailers and consumers to tap the gift card for activation, check the balance, and redeem assets, Infineon said.

Infineon’s secured EMV prepaid tag solution helps mitigate fraud issues for open-loop gift cards by enabling tap-and-pay at any point-of-sale merchant device or retail outlet processed via payment networks.

Infineon’s first partner in the gift card industry is Karta Gift Card Ltd. The company provides support of AES encryption protocols and processing capabilities, offering cryptographic validation to avoid gift card cloning, skimming, and replay attacks, Infineon said.

Infineon’s prepaid tag solutions for gift cards are available today. The new solutions are fully compatible with existing manufacturing infrastructures for smart cards and paper tickets, and the secured EMV prepaid tag solution is fully EMV compatible, supporting the latest approved Visa and MasterCard applets.

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