The amount of money left on Starbucks cards between January and March of this year (officially, the company’s second quarter) was more than the capitalization of some banks, the newspaper said, citing a report published in the Wall Street Journal.
“During Q2 (Jan.-March 2016), approx. $1.2 Billion was loaded onto Starbucks Cards (includes physical and digital cards),” said Maggie Jantzen, a Starbucks spokeswoman based at company headquarters in Seattle.
“More than 40% of transactions in our stores are completed using a Starbucks Card,” she said.
Information for the report came from an analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence on where people were keeping their money, the newspaper said.
The quarterly total of $1.2 billion stored on Starbucks gift cards and its mobile app was higher than California Republic Bancorp, Mercantile Bank Corp. and Discover Financial Services have in total customer deposits, the newspaper said.
Starbucks cards are so popular, in fact, that one in six Americans received such a card during the past holiday season.
The company, with more than 11,000 U.S. locations, has 12 million loyalty club members in the United States.
But Starbucks was not spared from this week’s tragedy in Orlando, Florida, when 49 people were killed in a mass shooting at a nightclub.
Two workers from a Starbucks shop in an area Target store were shot, one fatally, the company said.
The Starbucks Foundation announced Wednesday that it would give $50,000 to the OneOrlando Fund to assist others affected by the shooting.
The foundation also invited the public to give to the Center Orlando’s new GoFundMe page, Pulse Victim’s Fund, to assist Orlando shooting victims.
