Blackhawk Network and Amazon Offer New Mobile Wallet Capabilities

PLEASANTON, Calif., July 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Blackhawk Network, Inc., a leading prepaid and payments network, and Amazon have teamed up to bring customers a better way to manage and spend their gift cards. Using the new Amazon Wallet app, customers can more easily store, redeem and check the balance of gift cards from dozens of major retailers and restaurants.

"We are happy to be working with Amazon to bring today's mobile consumers a more convenient way to manage and spend gift cards from a wide selection of retailers," said Talbott Roche, President of Blackhawk Network. "We're confident customers will enjoy the enhanced digital experience this new, secure, flexible mobile payment option offers."

Amazon customers can now load information from their existing physical and digital gift cards into their Amazon Wallet. Once the information is saved, card balances can be viewed from the app or online. Customers can redeem their cards online, or present them in-store right from their phones. The Amazon Wallet app comes already installed on the new Fire phone, and is also available for download to Android phones running 4.0 or above. The new gift card features are also available online at amazon.com/wallet.

For retailers, the Amazon Wallet app opens opportunities to drive store visits and generate incremental sales. Customers are able to easily see the value of their gift cards, and even if they leave the plastic at home they can still make a purchase at many locations.

"Blackhawk Network's expertise in gift card management provides our customers with access to the retailers they want and the digital experience that Amazon is committed to delivering," said Charlie Kindel, Director, Amazon Local Commerce. "Together we are helping consumers get the full value of their gift cards with the safety and convenience of storing them digitally. Instead of fearing they might lose or forget about them, they can have them on hand to use wherever and whenever they choose."

For more information about Amazon Wallet, visit www.amazon.com/wallet.

To learn more about Blackhawk Network, visit www.blackhawknetwork.com

About Blackhawk Network
Blackhawk Network Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: HAWK and HAWKB) is a leading prepaid and payments network, which supports the program management and distribution of gift cards, prepaid telecom products and financial service products across a global network. Blackhawk's digital platform supports prepaid across a network of digital distribution partners including retailers, financial service providers, and mobile wallets.  For more information please, visit www.blackhawknetwork.com.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are indicated by words or phrases such as "guidance," "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "plans," "continuing," "ongoing," and similar words or phrases and the negative of such words and phrases. Forward-looking statements are based on our current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties which are, in many instances, beyond our control, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in or contemplated or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include the following: our ability to grow at historic rates or at all, the consequences should we lose one or more of our top distribution partners or fail to attract new distribution partners to our network or if the financial performance of our distribution partners' businesses decline, our reliance on our content providers, the demand for their products and our exclusivity arrangements with them, our reliance on relationships with card issuing banks, the consequences to our future growth if our distribution partners fail to actively and effectively promote our products and services, the requirement that we comply with applicable laws and regulations, the requirement that we comply with increasingly stringent money-laundering rules and regulations, reputational harm that could be caused by abuse of our prepaid products, failure to comply with, or further expansion of, consumer protection regulations, failure by us to comply with federal banking regulation, costs of compliance with or changes in state unclaimed property laws and regulations and tax codes, failure to maintain our existing money transmitter licenses or permits or failure to obtain new licenses or permits in a timely manner, other changes in laws and regulations to which we are subject or to which we become subject in the future, the intense competitive pressure faced by our business, fluctuations in our financial results from quarter to quarter, season fluctuations in our business, any decline in the attractiveness of gift cards to consumers, our ability to increase our revenues from prepaid products or services, including GPR cards, declines in consumer confidence, any interruption in the efficient operation of our transaction processing systems, any data security breach, litigation, investigations or regulatory examinations, fraudulent or other illegal activity involving our products and services, changes in card association rule or standards, any inability to operate and scale our technology, our failure to keep pace with the rapid technological developments in our industry and the greater electronic payments industry, changes in the telecom industry, assertions by third parties of infringement by us, our distribution partners or our content providers, our inability to adequately protect our brands and other intellectual property rights, settlement risk from retailers that sell our products and services, disruption caused by replacing any third party vendor, future acquisitions or investments, our ability to attract and retain key personnel, risks related to our international operations, and risks related to our ongoing relationship with Safeway. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect developments or information obtained after the date hereof and disclaim any obligation to do so. Please refer to our reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the registration statement filed in connection with our initial public offering.

Contact:
Chris Prouty
MWW for Blackhawk Network
(415) 987- 5491
[email protected]

SOURCE Blackhawk Network, Inc.