Korean Luxury Retail Clients to Manage Reward Points on Blockchain

Blockchain rewards platform MiL.k has teamed up with Seoul-based luxury retail space chain Shinsegae Duty Free to provide loyalty points compatibility and management. 

The new partnership allows Shinsegae customers to connect their existing rewards accounts to the MiL.k mobile app, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph on May 11. 

Adoption for “millions” of clients?

Once users interlink the accounts, they can reportedly trade their Shinsegae loyalty points for the in-house cryptocurrency called MLK, which currently trades at $0,19 per token. MLK in turn, can be exchanged for reward points of other partnering vendors, like Yanolja, a Korean travel accommodation platform. 

Such partnerships allow MiL.K to increase the utility of loyalty points across the leisure, life-style, and travel sector, making it a more effective endeavor, the press release stipulated.

Jayden Jo, CEO of MiL.k, believes that adding Shinsegae Duty Free to his company’s network will also expose “millions of customers” to blockchain, thus leading to greater adoption across the Asia region.

MiL.K platform itself is built on Hyperledger Fabric and is compatible with ERC-20, Samuel Yun, head of international business at Milk Partners told Cointelegraph, explaining why the startup relies on blockchain in the first place:

“By using blockchain, we can generate mutual credibility between service companies. Since all the transactions are written on ledgers and encrypted on blockchain, service companies don’t have to worry about any data leakage and just leverage from the synergies within the alliance.”

As for transaction fees for trading tokens within the platform, they are set at 1.5%.”It wouldn’t hurt our users since the minimum discount rate that the platform offers is 5% for all the reward purchases,” Yun argued.

Similar use cases in retail sector

Late in 2019, Japanese retail juggernaut Rakuten enabled its customers to exchange their Rakuten Group loyalty points for three major cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) via its crypto exchange subsidiary. The move aimed to simultaneously boost cryptocurrency adoption and promote Rakuten’s loyalty program.

Earlier that year, crypto exchange bitFlyer coupled up with technology services company Tpoint Japan to allow its Japanese customers to trade their loyalty program points for Bitcoin, and earn additional rewards for paying in crypto.