We are excited to announce that we have partnered with ChargeSmart, an online consumer bill paying portal, to help deliver an even better way for you to redeem your unused gift cards.  This joint venture will allow customers to apply unused gift cards towards the payment of car, mortgage and utility bills.

This new gift card exchange feature, which was debuted yesterday, will be available for public use in a few months.  Don’t worry; we’ll be sure to update you when it’s live.

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–ChargeSmart, an online consumer bill payment portal, and Plastic Jungle, the web’s largest secured gift card exchange, today announced a partnership to enable customers to use unredeemed gift cards to make payments on utility, car and mortgage bills. This new gift card exchange solution was officially debuted this afternoon at FinovateSpring 2011, the high-profile banking technology conference held in San Francisco, and will be available to the public within the next couple months. Customers can learn more about this offering and sign up to be notified about the launch by visiting http://chargesmart.com/giftcards.

Merchant-issued – or closed loop – gift cards now represent $90 billion of the U.S. economy, and an estimated $30 billion in gift cards are unredeemed at any given time. Plastic Jungle brings liquidity to the secondary gift card market by allowing consumers to buy gift cards at their favorite stores for savings up to 35 percent, sell unredeemed gift cards for up to 92 percent of the gift card value, or donate the value of unused cards to their favorite cause. Through ChargeSmart and Plastic Jungle, consumers will be able to apply up to 92 percent of the value of a gift card toward an outstanding bill.

“As the statistics suggest, people love to buy and receive gift cards, yet many cards are never used,” said Tim Brinkman, CEO of ChargeSmart. “ChargeSmart and Plastic Jungle ensure that customers capture value from those gift cards, even if it means redirecting their intended use toward making more practical purchases like paying their bills.”

“Utility, car and mortgage bills have to be paid, so every dollar applied from these gift cards puts real money in the pockets of our customers,” said Bruce Bower, CEO of Plastic Jungle. “Our joint solution with ChargeSmart will get gift cards out of American sock drawers and provide a valuable, seamless and instant way to reduce these non-discretionary expenses.”

About ChargeSmart

Founded in 2008, San Francisco-based ChargeSmart is an online consumer bill payment portal, providing consumers a secure, convenient way to fund their bill payments using Visa, MasterCard or Discover. Once a consumer submits a payment, the funds are typically deposited into the company’s bank account within one to two business days. More than 300,000 consumers nationwide currently use ChargeSmart to facilitate card payments to their utilities, auto finance, student loan and mortgage companies, among others. For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.chargesmart.com/.

Read the full press release on ChargeSmart and Plastic Jungle Announce Partnership Enabling Customers to Pay Bills with Gift Cards