American Express Taps Into Hyperledger’s Blockchain For Rewards Program Revamp

American Express is one of the companies that have deployed Hyperledger’s blockchain technology in order to make its Membership Rewards program way more versatile. With this, the US financial services firm made the first application of blockchain into a loyalty program.

According to some pre-official details, the revamped program will let merchants create Membership Rewards offers on their own platforms and therefore engage customers and offer card members more opportunities to earn points.

The partnership includes American Express and Boxed, an online wholesale retailer in a pilot promotion for all the Membership Rewards enrolled members. Speaking of, the program lets members earn up to 5X Membership Rewards points for select products and brands.

Initially, the rewards points will be provided to Boxed customers for products like Cheerios cereal, Planters nuts, Dove soap and a few other items according to the Associated Press. American Express also plans to make the program available to nearly all merchant partners in the next few months.

The technology behind this has helped to target individual items which have proven challenging because of the difference in merchants’ inventory systems. The Hyperledger blockchain technology solves this problem so that merchants and American Express can both create product-targeted offers.

If you are wondering how it works, the information will basically go through a private channel on the company’s blockchain allowing merchants to send and receive it securely. Moreover, the merchant will have control over the offers that they wish to market – and be able to create custom Membership Rewards offers and designate SKU level bonuses.

Once the offers are available to all customers, the smart contract will send the anonymized transaction to American Express on a private blockchain. Here, the company will identify the card member and issue them rewards points.