Gift cards are just one among the various types of prepaid cards that are offered by banks. Other types comprise forex cards like those offered by HDFC and SBI. They can be utilized for purchases and cash withdrawals in the requisite foreign currency overseas.

Other prepaid cards are meant primarily for corporate entities and not individuals. For getting a gift card, you need to fill a basic form and hand over the identity proof plus the cash to any local bank branch. You will be issued it on the same day.

You need to check about the fees and limits, if any. Processing your gift card application incurs a fee. The amount is in the range of Rs 100 to Rs 200. It varies from one bank to another. The amount is higher in banks such as IDBI and Axis, where the activation fees are one percent of the amount that is loaded onto the card provided the card value is more than Rs 10,000.

You can get a gift card for any denomination, from Rs 500. The ceiling on the gifting amount varies depending on the bank you approach. The cap roughly ranges between Rs 10,000 (at banks likes HDFC) and Rs 50,000 (at Axis and ICICI).

Though the gift cards are supposed to be easily available at all local bank branches, this is not always the case. Smaller bank branches may not stock gift cards at all times. The personnel there may ask you to visit the main branch. Also, your cheque may take an additional day to be processed and the card will be activated only after that.

If the gift card has been presented before the activation has been done and if the receiver immediately uses it, the transaction will be declined.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under corporate gift, corporate gifting ideas, Corporate Gifting Benefits, corporate gifting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.