Expansion into in-store payments
Virtual Piggy (VPIG) has announced a partnership with Discover Financial Services, which will enable users to make in-store purchases at merchants within the Discover Network. This will provide users with more opportunity to spend their money via Virtual Piggy’s service and has the potential to drive incremental in-store transaction volumes on top of existing online transactions. This could also accelerate user sign-ups above the recently achieved one million target.
Discover Network deal
Virtual Piggy has announced that users should soon be able to access in-store payment capabilities via the Discover Network using pre-paid cards. The card will be linked to the Virtual Piggy user account giving parents control over spending limits and locations and enabling the user and parents to track spending online and in store. This will give Virtual Piggy the opportunity to support users across multiple
channels, and hence gain a larger share of wallet, potentially driving higher transaction volumes.
From Virtual Piggy to Oink
In anticipation of the move to in-store payments and a more mobile-focused strategy, the company rebranded the name of the service from Virtual Piggy to Oink in December. Registered user numbers have grown from the 250,000 reported in June 2013 to more than one million by the end of January 2014, with gaming users key drivers of transaction volumes. The company continues to sign up new merchants to the service and to integrate with key e-commerce platform providers.
In the early stages of commercialisation
Virtual Piggy is in the early stages of commercialisation and has not yet generated material revenues, as the push to sign up end users only started in earnest in March. At the end of Q313, Virtual Piggy had net cash of $4.6m and during Q114 raised $7.6m from the issue of new preference shares and the conversion of warrants. Milestones to track that should demonstrate progress towards break-even and profitability include user sign-ups, value of transactions processed and partnerships with larger players including merchants, payment processors and online communities.