Chase has announced that checking account holders can now send digital gift cards for more than 60 top retailers through the Chase.com website or Chase Mobile app.

The service allows users to send electronic gift payments of between $5 and $100 for free, using only the recipient’s email address, a company press release said. Chase said that major retailers and restaurants including Starbucks, The Home Depot, Panera and AMC Theaters are participating.

"This was a new experience that we built for customers," spokesperson Emily Schaefer told Mobile Payments Today via email. "We saw that a lot of transactions through QuickPay with Zelle had a memo indicating that the transaction was being used as a gift."

Schaefer said that many of the memos in the Zelle payments included memos that said "congratulations" or "happy birthday." Additionally, customers wanted a feature that would allow them to track scheduled gift payments and past transactions, prompting the bank to make digital gift cards available.

Senders click on "gifting" when sending a payment and recipients receive an email confirmation with a barcode that can be scanned at checkout and a numerical code that can be used at an online retailer's site.

The bank plans to add further functionality and more retailers to the gift card feature, Schaefer said.