Visa, the global payments giant, has announced a new partnership with SmartMedia Technologies to offer new Web3 loyalty rewards. 

The goal is to involve users more, through loyalty that will allow them to experience new digital and physical experiences. 

Visa and SmartMedia Technologies offer new Web3 loyalty rewards to engage users more

Visa, in partnership with SmartMedia Technologies, is launching a new loyalty solution, offering its users new Web3 rewards. 

The purpose of the global payments giant is to make the brand-consumer exchange more engaging, also through new digital and physical experiences. 

@Visa and SMT are taking loyalty to the next level!

With the combination of Visa’s digital payment solutions and SmartMedia Technologies’ enterprise web3 platform, financial institutions and merchants can have their own branded mobile app and create their own marketplaces and…

— SmartMedia Technologies (@SmartMedia_Tech) January 4, 2024

“@Visa and SMT take loyalty to the next level! Thanks to the combination of Visa’s digital payment solutions and SmartMedia Technologies’ web3 corporate platform, financial institutions and merchants can have a branded mobile application and create their own markets and communities.

The Visa Web3 Loyalty Engagement solution allows brands to: engage customers with virtual, digital, and real experiences; provide a seamless digital experience that can unlock promotional rewards, benefits, and advantages; offer new and existing customers fun and rewarding experiences in the digital world.”

The new service is called Visa Web3 Loyalty Engagement Solution and aims to create added value in engaging and retaining users of the payment giant.

And indeed, the new Web3 rewards will allow customers to have digital wallets to collect tokenized tickets, loyalty coins, digital collectibles, and other benefits offered by brands, which can then be used for virtual and physical experiences. 

According to the words of Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, SVP and Global Head of Issuing Solutions at Visa, the new loyalty service will allow brands to reward customers both for their transactions and for their active engagement. 

This is therefore a new era of rewards, which responds to the current desires of people who want to be rewarded not only for their purchases and loyalty, but also for their commitment and interactions with a brand, especially if it is fun, easy and rewarding.

Visa and the Web3 loyalty rewards service

In order to succeed in this initiative, Visa has relied on the collaboration of SmartMedia Technologies, which has created a corporate platform that connects Web2 and Web3 to provide brands with levels of prize personalization for their customers.

And indeed, through Visa Web3 Loyalty Engagement Solution, brands can engage customers by providing a digital wallet where they can apply rewards – such as perks and benefits – for virtual, digital, or real experiences in various sectors such as travel, sports, and more.

In this regard, Tyler Moebius, CEO of SmartMedia Technologies, said:

“SmartMedia Technologies is excited to collaborate with Visa to revolutionize the future of loyalty and engagement. Our Web3 corporate platform seamlessly integrates with Visa’s digital payment solutions, offering brands unparalleled experiences to connect with consumers. This collaboration is not only about enhancing rewards for customers, but also redefining the exchange of value between brands and consumers in a mobile payment-centric world.

We are committed to providing experiences that are as rewarding as they are engaging and relevant to today’s ever-evolving consumers.

Web3 and the significant growth of Blockchain Gaming

Being in the Web3 world, just last month we talked about the significant growth that blockchain gaming (GameFi) is experiencing.

Despite being still far away from the achievements reached by the traditional gaming market, it seems that Web3 gaming has recorded significant numbers. 

And indeed, according to data from market intelligence company Grand View Research, the blockchain gaming market was worth more than $4.8 billion in 2022, with a forecasted expansion at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 68.3% from 2023 to 2030. 

CoinGecko also reveals another important data, stating that every day more than 800,000 people play Web3 games. This figure pales in comparison to the Web2 game Minecraft which (alone) has an average of over 11.9 million players per day.

Anyway, blockchain gaming is growing rapidly, to the point that even CoinGecko has stopped to describe the differences between a GameFi player and a traditional player. 

In practice, while traditional games have regular players, in blockchain games there are yield farmers, degenerate traders, institutional investors, bots, actual players, and a constantly evolving list of participant types who connect their wallets to the protocols. 

Visa is looking for entrepreneurs in the fashion, arts and entertainment fields to get them involved in its new NFT-related project.

Visa in the NFT world

Two days ago, Visa unveiled the Visa Creator Program, a new offering that could help digital artists, musicians, fashion designers and filmmakers build their businesses through Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). 

According to a statement from the US credit card company, this is a very interesting slice of business, considering that it counts around 50 million artists of various kinds, with a total turnover of $100 billion.

Cuy Sheffield, head of Visa’s cryptocurrency business development division, said in a statement:

“We’ve been studying the NFT ecosystem and its potential impacts on the future of commerce, retail and social media. Through the Visa Creator Program, we want to help this new breed of small and micro businesses tap into new mediums for digital commerce”.

Earlier this year, a survey prepared by Visa indicated that around 24% of SMEs would already be ready to accept cryptocurrency payments in their current business. And according to the survey, 59% of the companies that took part in the survey already use digital payments only. 

Programme objectives

Visa first launched its programme in October, as a kind of test run, with former professional baseball player Micah Johnson, who created the entertainment and media company Aku. 

The programme plans to help the chosen entrepreneurs learn more about the world of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, into which Visa looks set to invest heavily in the near future.

In this way Visa will support the entrepreneurs and at the same time will be able to study on the ground how NFTs can impact the real economy and what its most appropriate uses can be.

The benefits for SMEs

Last August, in a lengthy blog post on the company’s website, on the occasion of Visa’s purchase of an NFT from the CryptoPunk collection for around $150,000, it was stated:

“NFTs have the potential to become a powerful accelerator for the creator economy and lower the barrier to entry for individual creatives to earn a living through digital commerce. NFTs are starting to usher in a new form of social commerce that empowers both creators and collectors”.

The blog specifically referred to the possible future link between NFTs and SMEs, specifying how:

“NFTs could also fuel small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in powerful new ways. The rise of ecommerce has made it possible for SMBs to sell online and reach customers around the globe. But they still have to produce and ship physical goods, which can have high upfront costs. NFTs give small businesses an opportunity to harness public blockchains for producing digital goods—which can be delivered instantly to a crypto wallet. We can envision a future in which your crypto address becomes as important as your mailing address”.

Visa has long had many credit cards that allow payment and money transfer in cryptocurrencies, five of them even using cashback. This is a tangible and unmistakable sign that the company, as well as its historic rival Mastercard, have been looking at the world of cryptocurrencies with increasing interest for some time.

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