[May 19, 2015]

CashStar Announces Record-Setting Revenues Driven by Industry-Leading Innovation in Prepaid Commerce

CashStar, the industry-leading provider of prepaid commerce solutions, today announced record revenues for 2014, driven by 700 percent growth in gross merchant value (GMV (News - Alert)) over the past three years. CashStar made the announcement as it commences its annual client conference, CashStar Innovate. The fifth annual gathering of clients, partners and industry experts reflects CashStar's impressive growth and continued leadership in the prepaid commerce industry.

"At CashStar, we have built a culture of innovation combining significant achievements with great people who strive to push the limits of what's possible in prepaid commerce," said Ben Kaplan, CashStar's president and CEO. "Achieving fast growth is a reflection not only of our team and our platform, along with our customers and partners, but also of the increasing importance of prepaid technologies in optimizing customer experiences across channels, devices and throughout the customer lifecycle."

New Solutions and Product Innovation

CashStar made major investments across its CashStar Commerce cloud platform, which unifies consumer- and business-facing applications in a reliable, secure and scalable operating environment. Significant developments include:

• Major update of CashStar Business, with a more intuitive shopping experience, expanded retailer administration and controls and self-service registration for business partners
• Extensive enhancements to CashStar Consumer, including extended plastic and digital reload capabilities, new personalization and accessory options for plastic gift cards, expanded native mobile integration capabilities and configurable multi-pack purchase options
• Release of CashStar Manager, which enables retailers to centralize reporting and operational insights, order management, and users and assets across all CashStar applications
• Full integration with Google (News - Alert) Wallet, enabling brands to offer consumers the ability to easily save their digital gift cards to Google Wallet, where they can store and manage them alongside loyalty program cards and offers
• Expanded promotional opportunities in CashStar Marketing, offering retailers new ways to increase conversion rates and revenue while building brand loyalty
• Continued improvements to revenue-optimizing risk management capabilities

"Part of our decision to select CashStar to power our direct-to-consumer digital and plastic gift card program was its stellar reputation for innovation and client success, and it's clear that we made the right choice," explained Steven Kane, group president, Gift Sales & Business Development, Spafinder Wellness, Inc. "CashStar's continuous product innovation has created significant business value for us, helping to improve consumer experiences and gifting options to drive higher transaction values and additional sales."

Significant Customer Growth

CashStar significantly increased its roster of more than 300 brands, with leading retailers and restaurants adopting CashStar, including Nine West, J.C. Penney, Hotels.com, ULTA, L'Occitane, Spafinder Wellness, Golf Galaxy, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and others. In addition, many existing clients expanded usage of the CashStar Commerce platform, taking advantage of new capabilities to help differentiate their brands and further grow prepaid revenue.

Notable Partner Expansion

CashStar's robust partner ecosystem enables retailers to grow distribution, accelerate innovation, and deliver more engaging consumer experiences. Over the past year, CashStar has furter extended the capabilities of CashStar Commerce with new technology and service partnerships, including a partnership with Valid USA. CashStar has also significantly extended its Exchange Network, which is comprised of more than 80 distribution partners, with new relationships with PayPal (News - Alert), Ebates.com and GiftCards.com, among others, to help retailers expand consumer reach.

"By working with CashStar, we have added more options from leading retailers and restaurants for our customers to choose from when purchasing digital gift cards through the eBay (News - Alert) marketplace and PayPal Digital Gifts store," PayPal's Vice Present & General Manager of North America Large Enterprise & Retail Solutions, Robert Clarkson explained. "As consumers increasingly embrace prepaid and digital payments, this relationship helps us provide those options easily, while also helping to drive increased customer loyalty and sales for the participating merchants."

Industry Recognition & Awards

CashStar and the CashStar Commerce platform have continued to receive accolades recognizing its market leadership, product innovation and successful clients:

• CashStar won "One to Watch" and "People's Choice" honors from the 2014 Paybefore Awards Europe and was named Leading Emerging Payments Service Provider 2014 by the Emerging Payments Awards
• The company won an additional Emerging Payments Award in the Best Digital Gifting Program category with Sephora and an Incentive Marketing Association Circle of Excellence Award for its digital gift card marketing promotion that combined offerings from both Regal Entertainment Group and Aéropostale
• CashStar was named to the 2014 AlwaysOn Global 250 list of the most promising B2B - SaaS and Enterprise private companies and the 2015 AlwaysOn OnFinance Top 100 list of the most promising private companies creating new opportunities in business, finance, payments and digital currencies
• CashStar Commerce won the silver PYMNTS Innovator Award for Best Prepaid Solution and was named the best in category 2015 Paybefore Awards winner for Outstanding White-Label Platform

Employee Investment

CashStar's revenue growth comes alongside its continued investment in people, with several key achievements in 2014:

• CashStar increased its workforce by 25 percent in the past year, including the addition of Gary Lombardo as vice president of marketing and Martin Hood as vice president of channel partnerships
• The company moved to a new, larger headquarters in downtown Portland in October 2014 to accommodate continued growth
• CashStar was named a Best Place to Work in Maine for the fourth consecutive year

About CashStar

CashStar, the industry-leading provider of prepaid commerce solutions, enables the world's top retailers and restaurants to grow and innovate in the rapidly evolving retail environment. CashStar provides best-in-class capabilities, revenue-optimizing risk management and a client success model based on aligned growth, to optimize digital gifting and prepaid commerce experiences. CashStar powers more than 300 leading brands worldwide including Best Buy, Brookstone, Coach, Crate & Barrel, Dell, Dunkin' Donuts, Gap, lululemon athletica, Nine West, Office Depot, Petco, Pottery Barn, QVC, Sephora, Staples (News - Alert), Starbucks, The Cheesecake Factory, The Home Depot and Williams-Sonoma. To learn more, please visit www.cashstar.com, follow @CashStar or e-mail [email protected]

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150519005552/en/

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