Blackhawk Network acquires North America’s NGC

By Pavithra R

Global branded payments provider Blackhawk Network has completed its acquisition of National Gift Card (NGC), North America’s leading card and prepaid technology companies.

Founded in 2004, National Gift Card (NGC) is a leading gift card and mobile payments technology provider. It has been the industry’s choice for gift card technology solutions, for example, gift card API integrations, mobile branded currency platforms, gift card eCommerce portals.

“We are excited to welcome NGC to the Blackhawk family to further enhance our incentive solutions and strengthen our end to end program management solutions. With this acquisition, Blackhawk now offers full issuance program management, fulfillment, global retail and business to business distribution, and is the global single source for leading, reward-based incentive programs large or small,” said Talbott Roche, CEO and president of Blackhawk Network.

The acquisition is expected to broaden Blackhawk’s prepaid and gift card offerings and integrates NGC’s best in class fulfillment capabilities into Blackhawk’s operations. Besides, Blackhawk’s prepaid and gift card offerings and integrates NGC’s best in class fulfillment capabilities into Blackhawk’s operations.

“Blackhawk has long been a leader in the gift card and incentives industry and has been a long-standing partner of NGC. Together, we drove almost $3 billion in gift cards and prepaid products for loyalty, rewards, and employee recognition programs in 2019 alone. Now, as an official part of the Blackhawk team, we can expand upon the continued growth of NGC, Blackhawk and the prepaid industry overall and are excited to drive further value for both NGC’s and Blackhawk’s clients,” said Adam Van Witzenburg, CEO of NGC.

Blackhawk Network delivers branded payment programs to help meet challenging business objectives. The FinTech provides its solutions through prepaid products, technologies and network that connects brands and people. The firm was acquired in 2018 by Silver Lake and P2 Capital Partners and is being held as a private company. It has presence in over 26 countries.