Japanese Giant Hitachi Tests Blockchain Tech for 150 Million Member Rewards Program
Hitachi, a major and decades-old Japanese conglomerate and multinational is implementing a blockchain platform onto its popular point management and rewards platform, PointInfinity.
Japanese blockchain developer and bitcoin exchange Tech Bureau is providing ‘Mijin’ its private blockchain solution to Hitachi’s PointInfinity, which sees over 150 million members on its platform.
The revelation was made in a recent blog post by Tech Bureau, confirming that the test had begun on February 9 this year.
PointInfinity is a hugely successful point management solution adopted by merchants and service providers to deploy point-based membership loyalty programs for frequent customers. Merchants see the appeal in its low-costs and ease of implementation with robust security.
With the proof-of-concept testing, Hitachi is looking to determine the operational feasibility of PointInfinity through a significant amount of transactions and electronic payments on multiple blockchains.
An excerpt from the announcement read:
The overall goal is through expansion of dealings with issuers, points will be used similarly to currency. This could, in turn, result in the creation of countless additional service options.
Tech Bureau claims its Mijin offering -based on P2P cryptocurrency and blockchain NEM – has already been proven as “a bank, a microfinance ledger and an electronic money core banking system.” A top-ten cryptocurrency, NEM (token XEM), which went public in early 2015 is among the most popular alternative cryptocurrencies in Japan. According to the Tech Bureau, Mijin is used by 311 companies from 15 countries in areas including online gaming, logistics, points platforms, electronic money settlements and more.
The blockchain platform has shown in previous use-cases in a core banking system to execute a large number of transactions over multiple locations. With point services, a large number of transactions from several locations are concentrated in one place due to Mijin’s applicability while the blockchain solution has also proven useful with complicated interest rate calculations in financial services offerings.
The outcome of the testing and the subsequent data analysis could lead to Hitachi formulating a plan to integrate the Mijin blockchain into its point management program. If successful, the implementation could be among the most notable examples of operational blockchain technology in any sector.
Meanwhile, Hitachi is investing in its own in-house development of blockchain technology with the opening of a Fintech-exclusive lab in California. The Japanese conglomerate is also one of thirty founding members of the prominent cross-industry collaborative blockchain effort led by the open-source Linux Foundation, the Hyperledger Project.
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