American Express have officially filed a patent for a potential customer rewards platform which will be based on current blockchain technology. As revealed on the US patent office website, the project will aim to make use of the blockchain technology to organize and store customer information such as credit card purchases, to help distribute personalized rewards to American express users.
“The blockchain structure may include a distributed database that maintains a growing list of data records. The blockchain may provide enhanced security because each block may hold individual transactions and the results of any blockchain executables. Each block may contain a timestamp and a link to a previous block.”
The project will compile various user data such as historical transaction data, interaction with past offers and even the purchases which users abandon to identify offers which will be increasingly valuable and applicable to individual customers. Being part of the Hyperledger project, American Express already has access to a huge array of blockchain resources.
The patent also hints at other projects which may be in the works including verification services which can potentially eliminate the tiresome verification checks carried out on customers without putting added risk to businesses.
To conclude, we may soon see a rewards system being implemented based on blockchain technology as a addition to many of the perks the payments giant currently provides,. While American Express remains committed to their cashback and airmile services, the new service will aim to personalize rewards by allowing the blockchain based platform to collect information such as past purchases made by the customer to ensure their reward is ideal and best suited to their preferences. Currently no release date is set for the service as it is rumored to be in very early stages of development.
