CHAMBERS IRELAND has confirmed a new partnership with a gift card provider that is seeing a rapid increase in its use in towns, cities and villages across the country.
The business network, which is an umbrella body for 36 chambers located across Ireland, has partnered with Miconex - the firm behind the Town & City Gift Card concept.
Founded in Scotland in 2010, Miconex creates gift cards that are tailored to local areas across Britain, Ireland, the US and Australia, for use in their local shops.
In 2025 more than €17.4m of sales were made through their Town & City Gift Cards network in Ireland.
Confirming its Miconex partnership this week, Chambers Ireland said it comes at a time when “the shop local sentiment continues to rise in prominence in the country”.
Colin Munro and Ian Talbot pictured st the partnership announcement (Pics: Conor McCabe Photography)Miconex introduced four new Town & City Gift Card initiatives in Ireland last year, as Irish towns and cities “increasingly look for modern alternatives to high administration, high risk paper gift vouchers”, a Miconex spokesperson confirmed.
“In April 2025, Mullingar Chamber upgraded their paper gift vouchers to a high-tech physical and digital gift card alongside Miconex,” Chambers Ireland said in a statement.
“Dungarvan & West Waterford Chamber were the most recent Chamber that made the transition from paper to a modern programme with Miconex in November 2025,” they added.
The Town & City Gift Cards network has grown rapidly across Ireland in recent years.
Mastercard backed, the multi-store gift cards can be spent with big brands and independent businesses, in person, with the aim of driving footfall and diverting spend back to local high streets.
Now, as part of the Miconex and Chambers Ireland partnership, the Town & City Gift Cards initiative will be the partner local gift card programme for Chambers Ireland members.
“By partnering with Miconex and the Town & City Gift Cards initiative to members, Chambers Ireland is championing local shopping across Ireland, supporting its members to capitalise on the increased demand for gift cards and convert ‘shop local’ sentiment across consumer and corporate audiences into increased local spend with their own locally branded programme,” Ian Talbot, Chief Executive at Chambers Ireland, said.
“Miconex is a leading provider of shop local initiatives globally, with 200 programmes around the world and €79m in local spend delivered,” he added.
Miconex CEO Colin Munro said their data has found that people are increasingly aware of the need to shop local.
“In our 2025 research, 98% of people said support for local was important and 82% said supporting local has become more important to them over the past 12 months,” he explained.
“The Town & City Gift Cards concept is a tried and tested, rapidly expanding network that enables places to introduce their own branded gift card, or evolve their paper programme to a high-tech physical and digital gift card,” he added.
“We look forward to bringing the initiative to even more counties across Ireland in 2026.”
