Money & Banking
Customers load 200 million a week onto Starbucks gift cards. The 1.7 billion that sits on its books waiting for a coffee.
In any given week, customers around the world load roughly $200 million on to Starbucks gift cards and the Starbucks app. Some redeem the balance immediately for a flat white. As of 2024, Starbucks held over $1.7 billion in unredeemed gift card balances on its books. Money that customers had handed over, but not yet collected coffee for. That sounds like an accounting curiosity. It is actually a small bank. Starbucks holds the cash. It pays no interest to the depositors. About 10% of the loaded balance never gets redeemed at all, which Starbucks gets to recognize as straight revenue. The arrangement is so favorable that the company's finance team plans store openings and capital expenditure around expected gift card flows.
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