Toppan Printing Co., Ltd. (hereafter Toppan Printing; head office: Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo; President & CEO: Shingo Kaneko) has formed a business alliance with Mobile Commerce Solution Inc. (hereafter MCS; head office: Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo; President & CEO: Kosei Murai) to support the introduction of Gift Card (*1) ASP Services using a new type of terminal.
In this alliance, the two companies have jointly developed a new type of gift card payment terminal for the "Gift Card ASP Service (*2)" and will begin business to support introduction using this terminal from mid-August.

Copyright 2010 TOPPAN PRINTING CO., LTD.

Until now, sales of the Gift Card ASP Service have been centered on introduction using POS systems and credit card networks. However, there have been many companies among those wanting to introduce the service that have said that they have had to abandon introduction because it is too difficult to put the necessary infrastructure in place. Therefore, Toppan Printing has considered a service with which the introduction of the Gift Card ASP Service can be performed simply at a low cost. Meanwhile, MCS has been promoting sales of a payment terminal which has been successful in its own "Reloadable Card(R) (*3) Service".

The two companies have now developed a new type of gift card payment terminal that makes it possible to introduce the Gift Card ASP Service using companies’ existing network environments. When this terminal is used, introduction is possible in 2 to 3 months and it is possible to reduce the time and workload needed for the upgrading of the POS system, something that has been an issue when using POS systems in the past. In addition, provision of a safe and secure service is possible due to the provision of the functions of IP-WARP(R) (*4) technology from NTTPC Communications (*hereafter NTTPC). With this new type of payment terminal, we will strengthen Gift Card ASP Service proposals to companies that have been concerned about the burden of infrastructure development, such as POS system upgrades, and to companies that are considering test introduction. We will also promote the further expansion of the gift card market.

The Gift Card ASP Service was jointly developed by Fujitsu FIP and Toppan Printing and is a real-time processing service that manages gift card balances. It has been available since 2005 and as a leading service in the Japanese gift card market it is already in use by over 50 companies with the number of cards issued annually at over 3 million. The size of the US gift card market is said to be around 4.5 trillion yen. As a new product to stimulate gift demand in Japan and as a sales promotion tool for securing customers, introduction of gift cards is being advanced for businesses including department stores, general merchandise stores, clothes stores and restaurants. The market is growing by over 20% annually. There is also growing momentum for gift card malls and the Japanese gift card market is said to be of a scale of around 500 billion yen. Recently, there has been an increase in the use of gift cards as a form of web-based payment and the scope of applications is expanding.

Features of the newly developed device
-It is possible to realize gift card payment for which high security is required in an internet environment using VPN function IP-WARP®, which uses original tunneling technology developed and provided by NTTPC. By simply installing the terminal, it is possible to use the Gift Card ASP Service promptly using the network environment already in place at a company.
-It will be possible to introduce the service whilst keeping initial costs down as we are also planning the provision of terminals on a rental basis.
-Payment using a telephone line (ISDN/analog) is also possible.
-Operation is simple and it is easy to handle for store staff.

Price
Initial costs
-Initial cost for terminal:
(if purchased)72,000 yen / terminal
(if rented) 4,000 yen / terminal
* Not including installation and maintenance costs
-Initial costs for introduction of the Gift Card ASP Service:from around 800,000 yen

Monthly usage fees
-Fixed basic fee:from 100,000 yen
-Pay-as-you-go usage fee: 1.5% of value of payment
-(In case of terminal rental) 6000 yen / terminal

Target
We are targeting introduction at 30 companies by fiscal 2013.

Future developments
In the future we will consider a method by which the Gift Card ASP Service and "Reloadable Car(R) Service" can both be used with a single terminal and also explore plans to further reduce the burden for introduction. We will also explore the development of a service that is more user-friendly for the companies that have introduced it and promote the expansion of the Japanese gift card market.

* NTTPC Communications
NTT PC Communications Incorporated (head office: Minato Ward, Tokyo; President and CEO: Hiroo Inoue) is a 100% group company of NTT Communications that broadly and progressively engages in operations including network business such as VPN services and ISP business, as well as data center business.

*1: Gift Card
A type of gift token in card form where the balance is managed on a server. It is a new gift item which enables a greater range of design than traditional paper gift tokens and has a reduced management burden.

*2: Gift Card ASP Service
This is an ASP service jointly offered by Toppan Printing and Fujitsu FIP that provides one-stop support for the operation of gift cards. It is Japan’s largest gift card platform and has been adopted as the joint center for the Department Store Gift Card that can be used at around 160 department stores throughout Japan.

*3: Reloadable Card(R)
The Reloadable Card(R) is a registered trademark of MCS. The Reloadable Card(R) is the name of card compatible with the server management-based prepaid card payment service provided by MCS and it is used in the market as a gift card or rechargeable card.

*4: IP-WARP(R)
This is a tunneling technology developed independently by NTTPC using mobile IP technology. It is possible to communicate safely and securely with ASP service centers under the various network environments that customers have. With Japan’s first original tunneling technology (patent number 4231042) and transmission encryption, it is possible to use an extremely secure network even over a general internet connection.)