Paypal, an online payment system platform has mostly avoided Bitcoin implementation till now. But, recently it has rolled out an internal employee incentive program that is based on Blockchain technology.
A production of PayPal’s innovation lab, in San Jose, California, the platform took 25 strong team six-months to build and went live this November, according to reports by Cheddar and the lab’s director of innovation Michael Todasco. Although they can’t use the coins outside PayPal, they can trade them with each other.
An employee wishing to spend the tokens on something could buy “experiences” like a morning run with the CFO or borrowing the head of investor relations’ dog for a day.
The platform follows on from a patent application filed by the firm around an expedited virtual currency transaction system, which was disclosed to the public for the first time earlier this year.
The rewards system tracks a similar scheme set up by Spanish bank BBVA, which provides a platform for the benefit of some 4,000 employees between Spain and Argentina.
The bank offers tokens which can be exchanged for training, as well as giving employees the chance to earn tokens for training colleagues. The tokens themselves are held in ‘BBVA Campus Wallets’ assigned to each employee.
Todasco says the platform is a:
“Venmo-like feed people can like and comment on and see all the activity going on within PayPal related to innovation.”
Just for a reminder, Paypal integrated Venmo in May this year. Since then, customers are able to make purchases via their Venmo balances, without the need to open PayPal accounts.
There is no additional cost to merchants for using the service. Besides, they don’t have to introduce any changes to their PayPal integration in order to accept Venmo payments.
PayPal’s innovation lab primarily operates on prototypes, while it also examined voice technology previously. Currently, it focuses on voice projects as part of development. The initiative by the massive payment system indicates that PayPal is using the new technology on an internal level on trial basis.
It may use the blockchain technology for either a wider internal audience or for an external service user base in the future. Todasco further reveals that the lab does work with new platforms to launch them into the business by the time. He added that only if they are successful and there is a business case to do so.
It could be time for PayPal to deliver something new to the market, the PayPal app was just overtaken on Google Play Store by Square’s Cash App. The Square app does offer Bitcoin trading services and now holds the number one spot in the finance application category in the U.S region of the store.
Back in may, CFO at PayPal, John Rainey noted while explaining PayPal’s stance on crypto that Bitcoin was too volatile for its merchants. He said that if merchant demand increases PayPal could revise its policy on Bitcoin.
They were almost famous when in January CEO Dan Schulman said that Bitcoin is not ideal for retailers.
He said:
“I think right now, and we’re seeing this maybe more than ever, the volatility of the cryptocurrency makes it actually unsuitable to be a real currency that retailers can accept.”
Notably, the Payment platform giant filed a patent for a system to increase the speed of cryptocurrency payments, early this year. PayPal is moving up regarding its blockchain implementations.
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