GFSB Guest Editorial | George Bassadone, Founder, CalPay

My earliest memories of Main Street are holding my grandmother’s hand as a toddler as she walked to the hairdresser’s to undo her perfectly coiffed hair only to redo it.

It was her favourite thing in the world. And it was never really about the hair. It was the walk, the greetings, the stop at the same café, the shopkeepers she knew by name, trading news about their families. She could not have told you the difference between a purchase and a conversation, because on Main Street there was none.

Gibraltarians of my parents’ generation still reminisce about the years the border was closed. Spain, despite being a few metres away, was out of reach for thirteen full years. It should have been suffocating. Instead, it brings back fond memories of when Gibraltar was at its warmest and tightest, when the whole of the Rock felt like one household, each looking after the other.

That is exactly what Gibraltar is: one big family. And families, when things change, close ranks.

In July, things changed. The fence came down. After more than a century, the queue at the frontier is gone. It is a remarkable moment, and Main Street knows precisely what comes with it. For decades, the border did our marketing for us. The friction of crossing into Spain was a natural deterrent, keeping spending on our side of the line.

Now, that buffer is gone. It is nobody’s fault, but it is everybody’s problem.

Every pound that crosses the frontier for a supermarket run or lunch in La Línea is a pound that does not pay a local wage, does not settle a local supplier’s invoice, and never comes back to the Rock. Telling people to shop local out of sheer duty is not enough. Gibraltarians are astute spenders, and rightly so. Choosing Gibraltar needs to feel like the smart decision, not just the loyal one.

In small economies with large neighbours next door, a simple mechanism changes how people spend: reward them instantly for buying locally, and ensure that reward can only circulate within that community.

That is the thinking behind CalPay.

Customers pay through the CalPay app at participating local businesses and receive 5% instant cashback. That cashback lives in their CalPay wallet and can only be redeemed with participating businesses in Gibraltar. It never leaves the Rock.

What matters is the network this builds. Until now, every merchant has fought for customers alone, printing one-off paper cards, running isolated promotions, competing against the shop next door. CalPay turns that inward competition into shared leverage. The 5% reward funded by the merchant replaces individual promotional efforts with an interconnected ecosystem. Your customer becomes your neighbour’s customer, and theirs becomes yours.

I believe in the same thing my grandmother believed in every morning she walked out of her front door, and the same thing our parents proved during thirteen years behind a closed gate: Gibraltar looks after its own.

Government and the Chamber have a role to play. Technology has a role to play. But the businesses of Gibraltar, and the people who choose where to spend their money, have the biggest role of all.

We are opening CalPay to founding merchants now. If you run a business on the Rock and want your customers back on Main Street, I would like to talk to you.

Write to me at george@calpay.gi or visit calpay.gi.

The next chapter for Gibraltar has already begun. Let us make sure our own businesses are at the heart of it.

George Bassadone, Founder, CalPay