Mobile payments company New Media Insight Group announced today its mCard loyalty rewards and branded gift card programs in several states. According to the company, businesses can use mCards to effortlessly and securely create their own loyalty programs and branded gift cards.

"A number of studies have shown that customers enrolled in loyalty programs shop more frequently and spend more money per visit. As a result, it is crucial that that merchants make these types of programs an important part of their overall retail strategy," said Michael Palethorpe, CEO of New Media Insight Group. "With enhanced security benefits, ease of use and detailed analytics, our mCard solution provides additional benefits to both customers and merchants over more traditional solutions."

With a branded mCard, customers can send gifts cards to be spent at a particular store in real time to anyone through the company's proprietary network. Merchants can offer a range of loyalty benefits and rebates to their customers to incentivize new and repeat business. No new hardware is required to either use or accept the mCard.

The company also said that mCards provide security features that can prevent personal data from being stolen. Because the mCard functions similarly to a prepaid credit card, even if someone did steal the mCard number, the thief wouldn't be able to make any transactions with it because mCards are a single-use form of payment. In addition, because merchants can either key the card number into their existing credit card terminals or use an NFC or QR code scan, there is no risk of data being stolen from swiping the card.

Read more about retail loyalty programs.