Digimarc Corporation (NASDAQ: DMRC), a leading provider of digital identity and authentication technologies, today announced strong market momentum for its gift card security solution following a highly successful week at the 2026 Retail Gift Card Association (RGCA) industry event in Denver, CO.

Digimarc’s cross-functional team of five experts specializing in retail technology, digital identity, and fraud prevention engaged in dozens of strategic discussions with retailers, nearly 40 brands, and channel partners seeking new ways to address the rapidly growing threat of gift card draining. The overwhelming message from attendees was clear: traditional packaging-level security measures are no longer enough.

“As retailers continue to experience escalating fraud losses from gift card draining, we’re seeing a significant shift in how the industry thinks about gift card protection,” said Jennifer Suckey, Vice President of Retail Sales at Digimarc. “Even the session topics focused on how to respond to increasingly sophisticated fraud risks and tamper patterns using new security technologies, smarter manufacturing, and stronger connections between physical and digital experiences. But what really stood out at RGCA was the level of urgency. Organizations aren’t asking whether they should strengthen gift card security. They’re asking how quickly they can deploy solutions that protect cards at the individual item level and preserve the customer experience.”

A New Security Paradigm for Gift Cards

Gift card draining has scaled dramatically over the last several years. Organized criminals are actively removing gift cards from shelves, capturing card numbers and PINs, resealing packaging, returning cards to shelves, and draining funds after they are activated.

At RGCA, Digimarc demonstrated how its next-generation gift card security solution works at the card activation layer to help to mitigate this threat: tamper-evident, machine-readable digital watermarks that protect card PINs or barcodes together with a security update for retailers’ existing, front-of-store scanners so they can intelligently and automatically detect tampered cards, right at the point of sale. Cards with intact Digimarc digital watermarks scan instantly and activate normally. Cards detected as tampered are blocked from activation. The in-store experience is unchanged, but is three times more secure.*

Strong Pipeline Development Across the Industry

This automated approach to fraud detection and prevention resonated strongly with attendees looking for scalable solutions that fit within existing manufacturing, retail, and point-of-sale environments while leaving in-store experiences unchanged.

At the event, more than 45 people attended Digimarc’s happy hour, and the team held nearly 40 meetings with a broad cross-section of the gift card ecosystem, including:

  • Major retail brands evaluating next-generation fraud prevention strategies

  • Gift card manufacturers seeking differentiated security offerings

  • Security and authentication providers exploring complementary partnerships

Multiple organizations advanced discussions toward pilot opportunities, technical workshops, and enterprise roll-outs.

One attendee who works for a North American grocery retailer using Digimarc’s solution posted shout-outs highlighting the solution: “We’ve looked at a lot of different solutions over the year. I mean, there are a lot of solutions that stop fraud, but they significantly impact sales. So, we’ve really tried to look for a solution that keeps gift card selling quick, easy, convenient while mitigating fraud. So [Digimarc’s is] a solution—after looking at a lot over the last few years—that I believe will have a big effect on the industry in the next three to five years and hopefully sooner.”

“The volume and quality of conversations exceeded our expectations,” said Suckey. “The industry recognizes that fraudsters have become more sophisticated, routinely bypassing traditional, package-level security and exploiting the weaknesses of ‘dumb’ activation systems that can’t detect compromised cards. The level of engagement we saw confirms that the market is ready for innovation.”

Looking Ahead

“We left RGCA with tremendous optimism,” said Suckey. “The conversations were not theoretical. Industry leaders are actively looking for practical solutions that move the needle on fraud, and many see Digimarc as the path forward. The momentum we’re seeing reinforces our belief that the future of gift card security will be built on an intelligent activation system and a trusted digital identity at the item level.”

*According to Digimarc’s Fraud Risk Score methodology comparing our technology to traditional secure packs

About Digimarc

Digimarc (NASDAQ: DMRC) provides persistent digital identity that makes products, packaging and content identifiable and verifiable across the physical and digital worlds. Our technology can make identity intrinsic to the things themselves, creating durable proof that people, systems and machines can recognize. For more than three decades, Digimarc technology has helped protect global currency. Today, organizations use Digimarc to authenticate products, combat fraud, identify and trace content, and enable trusted interactions across increasingly connected physical and digital environments. Visit www.digimarc.com to learn more.

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