NMI’s contactless payment technology increases donations for UK charity by 309%

Increasing global contactless payments penetration opens up new revenue streams for businesses and charities.

Bristol, UK - November 27, 2018 – NMI, the unified commerce enablement company, is paving the way for ‘tap and go’ charity donations in the UK, the world’s leading contactless market, as well as bringing them to the US. In a unique collaboration with Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity in the UK, the organization benefited from the UK’s most popular payment form, contactless, which accounts for almost one in two in-store card transactions. NMI implemented unattended contactless donation points across the city of Bristol, this summer, during the charity’s popular sculpture trail, Gromit Unleashed 2 to help raise funds for the hospital.

“With people carrying less cash and contactless increasingly overtaking EMV chip card payments globally, it was of paramount importance to NMI to open up new revenue streams to charities like the Grand Appeal by making contactless technology accessible, already used by our transportation and retail customers” — Ingrid Anusic, Senior Vice President of Marketing at NMI.

“With people carrying less cash and contactless increasingly overtaking EMV chip card payments globally, it was of paramount importance to NMI to open up new revenue streams to charities like the Grand Appeal by making contactless technology accessible, already used by our transportation and retail customers”said Ingrid Anusic, Senior Vice President of Marketing at NMI

“Many of our staff have experienced the extraordinary care at Bristol Children’s Hospital when their little ones needed it. We are delighted to have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of contactless payments while raising money for a wonderful cause close to our hearts.”

The success of contactless payments has gained pace globally. As of June 2018, outside the US, 40% of Visa’s face-to-face transactions were contactless with Chase, the largest credit card issuer in the US, recently announcing to bring contactless Visa credit cards to “millions” of its US customers from the first half of 2019. Businesses and charities on both side of the Atlantic are already taking advantage of NMI’s contactless technology.

“We were delighted to partner with NMI for this project, and as a result The Grand Appeal has received a huge amount of public donations throughout the trail, which just wouldn’t have been possible through more traditional donation methods.” — Nicola Masters, Director of The Grand Appeal.

“This year contactless transactions overtook chip and PIN payments for the first time in the UK, so it made perfect sense to reflect this change in consumer behaviour when it came to Gromit Unleashed 2” said Nicola Masters, Director of The Grand Appeal.

“We were delighted to partner with NMI for this project, and as a result The Grand Appeal has received a huge amount of public donations throughout the trail, which just wouldn’t have been possible through more traditional donation methods.”

“From donating the contactless and waving its transaction fees, to sponsoring a sculpture and taking on a whole host of fundraising events, NMI’s incredible support stands at around £75,000. Crucially, that support helped us to truly shine the spotlight on the brave patients and amazing teams at Bristol Children’s Hospital and you simply can’t put a value on that. We’re hugely grateful to everyone at NMI.”

As well as creating bespoke donation points, NMI completed the technical back-end integration, testing, and certification processes required to enable EMV contactless ‘tap and donate’ payment acceptance including physical credit and debit cards as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay. Thanks to NMI and with support from Payter, the contactless payment device manufacturer, these donation points during Gromit Unleashed 2 resulted in an 309% increase in unsolicited donations in comparison to The Grand Appeal’s previous arts trail, ’Shaun in the City’ in 2015.

Through 17 different contactless donation points – each located at a different Gromit Unleashed 2 sculpture throughout Bristol at both internal and external locations – Gromit Unleashed 2 visitors donated over 9,000 times. Gromit Unleashed 2 was the first charity arts trail in the world to adopt contactless donation technology as its primary donation mechanism, and thanks to NMI, these collection points have raised over £45,000 / $58,000 for the charity.

Gromit Unleashed 2 ran from 2^nd July until 2^nd September and featured 67 individually decorated, larger-than-life sculptures of Academy Award®-winning Aardman characters, Wallace, Gromit and Feathers McGraw. At the end of the trail, the sculptures went under the hammer and raised over £1.3 million/ $1.65 million at auction for The Grand Appeal and Bristol Children’s Hospital.

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About NMI

NMI is driving transformation in the payment industry through the power of unified commerce enablement. By unifying every point of payment engagement to deliver one view of the customer, NMI is enabling thousands of ISOs, fintech innovators and technologists to finally break free from today’s payment crunch and unleash new sources of value to achieve disruptive results. Processing more than $180 billion in payments a year, NMI is the driving force behind more than 3,200 technology partners and 260,000 merchants across retail, transportation, hospitality, medical, non-profit, parking, and vending verticals who are shifting to a new unified commerce strategy to put their business first, gain new value and deliver a superior merchant and consumer experiences. For more information, please visit nmi.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

About Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal

The Grand Appeal is proud to be the dedicated Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity, providing 360-degree support for the hospital for over 20 years.

From the moment a child arrives at the hospital, our support workers offer comfort and advice; we give parents and siblings a free, comforting place to stay; provide daily music therapy sessions and arts and play activities; and fund the pioneering equipment and research that save lives. We’re a multi-award winning organisation, providing a wide range of support to patients, families and staff.

We work on a local, regional and national level to raise money and engage with a range of fundraisers and partners in support of our cause and to build our brand. But that’s not all - we do more than you think, working across the fundraising, retail, commercial, and operations and services industries. We also run the most successful charity arts trails in the world through Gromit Unleashed, engaging fans in Bristol, the UK, and around the world with truly innovative fundraising events. Whether we are delivering life-changing projects or creating new fundraising concepts, we are constantly developing creative ways to raise more money to help more children.

Bristol Children’s Hospital covers the largest geographic area of any children’s hospital in England, treating more than 100,000 children each year, and serves as the paediatric intensive care centre for the whole South West region. The hospital is an international, national and regional specialist centre of excellence for a range of services including neurosurgery, burns, epilepsy, cardiac, leukaemia and bone marrow transplants. For more information, visit www.grandappeal.org.uk

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