Special Report: Loyyal, Reffind Group’s blockchain technology investment, reached an exciting new high this morning thanks to a product integration partnership with Emirates Skywards – the loyalty program for Emirates airlines.

Airline rewards programs are the latest industry to be swept up by the possibilities of blockchain technology as industry giant Emirates Skywards announced it was in the final stages of rolling out its new partner infrastructure, based on the Loyyal Product Suite and the Loyyal Network.

Integration with Loyyal means Emirates Skywards can onboard new earn and redemption partners more efficiently and provide more relevant options for their 25 million global members in near real-time.

The blockchain platform, an investment of Reffind Group (ASX:RFN), has been working on its expansion strategy in the wings as it now gets ready to build on some freshly-secured capital and capitalise on significant interest in the Japanese market for blockchain loyalty and rewards programs.

Loyyal CEO and founder Greg Simon said that loyalty programs would soon come to be seen as the “killer app” for blockchain technologies.

“Emirates Skywards has shown industry leadership with their desire to innovate and be the first-to-market with this capability,” Simon said.

“We look forward to leveraging this implementation to empower additional blockchain-derived benefits for Emirates Skywards, with further operational cost-savings [and] improved customer experiences.” 

The blockchain company’s long-standing partnership with Emirates Skywards first began in 2016 as a way to look at how Loyyal’s technology could help provide cost efficiencies and improve overall member engagement experiences for customers on the Skywards rewards program in a way that had never been seen before, he added.

Emirates Skywards divisional senior vice president, Dr. Nejib Ben Khedher, underlined the strength of Loyyal in helping realise operational efficiencies. He said one of the ways Skywards will benefit from the product integration is by streamlining partner transactions and scaling for more partners.

“The pilot was a success providing real time visibility into partner transactions as well as increased operation efficiency,” he said.

Reffind non-executive chairman Rumi Guzder told Stockhead he was excited by the possibilities of what this partnership is set to deliver.

“We’re really pleased to announce Loyyal’s integration partnership with Emirates Skywards, one of the most innovative loyalty programmes in the world. What excites us most is the tremendous potential and value-add this represents to Reffind and our shareholders,” he said.

“Our investment in Loyyal continues to go from strength to strength and this deal highlights the promise of blockchain rewards and loyalty solutions for some of the largest commercial platforms in the world. It provides us with excellent validation of Loyyal’s blockchain capabilities and the significant value and material uplift that we can extract from the platform moving forward.”

The news comes on the back of an encouraging month for Reffind, which saw its share price double after seeing Loyyal complete its Series A-4 funding round with USD $1.15 million raised from three leading Asia-based investors and Dubai-based Hayaat Group.

One of these, LINE, is currently in discussions with Loyyal to expand on their collaboration beyond just an investment and help Loyyal build on its growing momentum in the Japanese market.

Loyyal has also recently completed pilots with an airline alliance with more than 500 million passengers across the world and has received revenues for these pilots. The company confirmed it is also expecting to run workshops in Q4 this year for six major Japanese global corporations.

This story was developed in collaboration with Reffind Group, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.