Best gift card processor to emulate

[posnut]

I'm creating a cloud service that will emulate one or more gift card processors, such as First Data's Closed Loop Gift Cards (formerly known as ValueLink) or Chase Paymentech NetConnect protocols.

Our expected clients are stadiums and large hotel chains. I believe two of the most popular systems for these clients will be Micros 9700 and Micros Symphony, and maybe Micros OPERA.

Given that, I'm trying to figure out what gift card processors those support, and which versions/protocols, so I know which one(s) to emulate. It's hard finding that level of detail on the corporate websites available to the general public, so I'm asking here, and hoping this awesome community can provide more details.

My company sales a unique gift-card-like product with the requirement that they can be redeemed on these POS systems, just like other gift cards that these platforms have native support for.

 

[Wildbar]

Micros allows you to use several different gift card interface drivers. We use Micros icare interface as well as a third party, Buyatab, for our gift cards. I would think you will need to connect with Micros at some point and be prepared to give them some money.

 

[posnut]

Thanks Wildbar. I was hoping they would have something built in like Aloha, something I could count on a large percentage (if not all) of Micros installs to already have. My business model starts to fall apart, at least this part of it, if customers have to pay for (or even install) extra components. With Aloha it is just a matter of changing the URLs for one of the pre-installed gift card processors to point to our server... looks like not going to be the case with Micros. I think Aloha/NCR has same parent company as FirstData now, so maybe explains why they include FirstData gift card support built-in.

I'll just sit here with my fingers crossed hoping FirstData or Visa purchases Oracle too, lol.

 

[posnut]

Actually I was just told about "Stored Value Card" interface. Sounds like that might be what I'm after, even though it is an extra addon.. at least it's made by Micros and sounds like it lets users configure it to use different existing gift card processors. So, in theory, if they had that addon, and can change the URL/endpoint that it talks to, to talk with my cloud server, and I emulate whatever processor it supports.. that should work. No?

Now I just need to figure out if this is possible.. i.e.-what processors it supports, and what config options are available.