American Express Integrates Blockchain To Its Membership Rewards Program

Financial services corporation American Express (AmEx) has announced a blockchain application to its Membership Rewards program in partnership with online merchant Boxed, Associated Press reported May 23.

AmEx announced that it is integrating blockchain technology developed by Hyperledger, an open source blockchain project under the Linux Foundation, to let merchants design customized offers for AmEx cardholders in order to increase customer engagement.

AmEx has started with Boxed, allowing the company to reward its clients for purchasing specific items, but AmEx reportedly expects to make the program available to almost all their merchants in the coming months.

Apart from promoting specific items, implementing the new program will reportedly let AmEx and its merchant clients target campaigns to very specific customers. Merchants will be able to make “product-targeted offers” while maintaining their own inventory systems. Chris Cracchiolo, the head of the Membership Rewards program for AmEx, explained:

“They can create programs based on a time of day, day of the week, by incentivizing a customer to download their app. The number of ways merchants can reward customers with Membership Reward points will be exponentially increased.”

In October last year, American Express Travel Related Services Co., Inc., the travel and merchant unit of AmEx, filed a patent for a personalized customer reward system using blockchain technology. The objective of the system is to offer customer-specific types of rewards that include points, a digital currency, or specific items linked to a product.