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In April this year, senior reward and benefits leaders gathered at The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin for an exclusive Benifex roundtable dinner. The session 鈥淧owering personalised benefits with tech-enabled allowances鈥�, brought together a group of peers for a focused discussion on one of the most timely topics in benefits strategy today.

Hosted by Adam Mason, Chief Strategy Officer at Benifex, the evening explored how allowances are evolving from an admin-heavy tool into a central pillar of modern, personalised reward strategies. Here’s what came out of the room.

The backdrop: benefits matter more than ever

The conversation opened with data from Benifex’s Big Benefits Report. In Ireland, 81% of employees say benefits matter when choosing an employer, and 83% say they influence whether they stay. Yet despite 89% of employers globally increasing their benefits spend, only 69% of employees feel that spend is delivering value.

For the reward and benefits professionals around the table, this gap was familiar. Benefits investment is growing, but employee appreciation of that investment isn’t always keeping pace.

Allowances are already widespread 鈥� but delivery hasn’t kept up

One of the clearest themes of the evening was how prevalent allowances already are. From lifestyle funds and wellness budgets to remote working support and flexible pots, allowances exist in many forms across many geographies. The room confirmed that this is an established reality, not an emerging trend.

What is still developing, however, is the infrastructure to deliver them well. The traditional model 鈥� employees pay upfront, submit invoices, wait for approval, then wait again for payroll reimbursement 鈥� creates friction on both sides. Employees are effectively funding the benefit themselves in the interim, while HR and reward teams carry the manual burden of claim reviews, eligibility checks and reconciliation.

The central question the group explored was one many in the industry are working through: how do you achieve the flexibility that allowances offer, without the operational overhead that has historically come with them? The answer, the discussion made clear, lies in technology.

Card-based allowances: compliance by design

A key theme was the role of card-based delivery in resolving the tension between control and flexibility. Rather than reducing governance, smart card infrastructure strengthens it, shifting compliance from a retrospective audit process to something that happens in real time, at the point of sale.

This is where the investment of major payments networks is particularly relevant. Alex Mifsud, Co-founder and CEO of Weavr, outlined how Visa and Mastercard are investing significantly in this space. Beyond merchant category controls and spend limits, the technology is advancing to a point where cards can identify not just where money is spent, but what is being purchased at the SKU level. In markets like Germany, where specific product categories are and aren’t permissible under tax reliefs, this level of granularity is becoming increasingly important for compliance.

For employers, this means ineligible spend can be declined at point of sale 鈥� no retrospective claim review, no policy grey areas. Compliance is built into the process rather than layered on top of it.

Data insight and the importance of anonymisation

The group had a considered discussion about the data dimension of card-based allowances. Real-time transaction data offers reward leaders something genuinely new: visibility into when, where and how benefits are actually being used.

The group was clear, however, that this data needs to be handled responsibly. Employer insight into spend patterns is valuable for refining strategy and understanding what employees value 鈥� but this should be anonymised and viewed at an aggregated, population level rather than used to scrutinise individual behaviour.

On adoption, the picture was unambiguous. Where friction is removed, employees engage. The concern that card-based models might see lower uptake compared to traditional vouchers or reimbursement is not reflected in practice. Adoption rates are high, and the data doesn鈥檛 show engagement as a barrier to card-based allowances 鈥� far from it.

A clear opportunity in the Irish market

One of the more notable moments of the evening came when the group turned to the Irish context. Approximately half of those in the room were currently making use of the Small Benefits Exemption 鈥� which allows employers to provide up to five non-cash benefits per year, with a combined value of up to 鈧�1,500, fully exempt from PAYE, USC and PRSI.

Amongst those already using it, approaches varied considerably 鈥� different amounts, different timings, and different levels of integration with the broader reward strategy. For those not yet using it, the exemption remained largely untapped.

Prepaid cards qualify under the exemption, provided the benefit is non-cashable. Card-based allowances are therefore a natural vehicle for delivering SBE-compliant benefits, providing the closed-loop controls that meet the non-cash requirement while offering employees genuine flexibility in how they spend.

The opportunity to think more deliberately about how the Small Benefits Exemption sits within a broader, cohesive reward and benefits strategy 鈥� rather than as a standalone add-on 鈥� was a consistent thread through the final part of the discussion.

The direction of travel

What emerged from the evening was a group at different stages of the same journey. Allowances are growing in prevalence and strategic importance. The technology to deliver them well 鈥� with real-time controls, meaningful data and a consumer-grade employee experience 鈥� now exists and is continuing to mature.

The operational burden that has historically come with allowances no longer has to be the norm. And in Ireland, with the Small Benefits Exemption providing a clear fiscal lever, the case for approaching allowances with greater deliberation and ambition is particularly strong.

Interested in exploring how card-based allowances could work within your benefits strategy? Book a meeting with a member of the Benifex team.