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How blockchain is bringing gamification to every industry

Tiny people with gamepad playing video games on console. Male and female gamers gaming flat vector illustration. Entertainment, gamification concept for banner, website design or landing web page

Distributed ledger technology is not the most user friendly or easy to grasp. Blockchain gamification is one way to bridge this user gap. The gaming sector has plenty in store to enrich other industries on how to keep customers engaged. According to a recent study by Newzoo, the global gaming industry has over two billion gamers and is worth about $150 billion. Video game income has even surpassed other forms of entertainment, like movies and music, according to the study. The most famous pieces of art can create sales in millions of units and can sustain numerous concurrent users. 

Various industries are embracing gamification or the use of gaming and game design techniques to engage their users better. Marketing departments are now using gamification in their marketing activities to reduce customer churn. Instead of just providing coupons, renewable points, and discounts, businesses are now spicing up their marketing campaigns using cutting-edge technologies to realize engaging risk and reward mechanisms. Starbucks, for instance, has introduced a loyalty program that enables customers to receive better rewards the more they spend. Besides, the company has also deployed multiple tech-based strategies over the years, like mobile apps, QR codes, and segmented reality to engage their customers. 

The blockchain tech power to offer secure record-keeping and enable transactions through cryptocurrencies makes it suitable for such applications. Different services are already establishing new channels to exploit the potential of blockchain-based solutions and possibilities of gamification. Form of gamification may vary. Projects like Sandblock, for instance, use smart contracts to facilitate their loyalty program campaigns. The digital and decentralized games such as CryptoKitties also demonstrate how crypto tokens can represent ownership of digital assets effectively. These use cases also demonstrate how blockchain has brought back fairness and trust in the gaming industry. In this article, we shall see how blockchain tech is bringing the elements of gamification  not only to typical gaming space, but basically to every sector through loyalty programs, digital ownership, and trustworthy and fair practices.  

Loyalty programs for e-commerce

Critics often complain that loyalty programs concentrate on just maximizing profits for businesses. Participants are incentivized inadequately for their participation by loyalty points campaigns that contain biased rules. Though it is acceptable for a business only to carry out sustainable loyalty programs, they are still supposed to offer customers with satisfactory reward rates. 

The problems begin with outlining business objectives, considering that loyalty campaigns can create many benefits. The marketers then continue with designing the reward system, the composition of reward and producing incentives good enough to cause behavior change but mean to the point that they grind down margins. Besides, there are puzzles of customer psychology to consider, which can make two incentives of equal value stir different levels of consumption.  

Using blockchain for business that needs relevant loyalty programs can eliminate such unfair dealings through the transparency it delivers. Smart contracts can be applied to monitor the mechanisms of these campaigns. Through the openness of smart contracts, it is possible to notice if firms are providing irrational terms and conditions. On the other hand in case of public blockchain space, some unprincipled members may also attempt to participate and abuse the system. Determined scammers can also alter poorly designed gaming rules, and therefore, having transparent records shows the participants who are trying to misbehave clearly. 

Launching a successful blockchain loyalty program starts with the objectives of the campaign. Marketers can only engineer the right strategies and evaluate whether they are running their campaigns well only if they have set clear goals. In other words, true benefits of blockchain come to truly valuable and well planned loyalty programs.

The use of digital currencies and blockchain-based feature will give clients more flexibility with their loyalty points. Many loyalty programs restrict these points for specific purposes and redemption with their respective businesses. Contrary, cryptocurrencies are mutually interchangeable and can be transacted with other tokens or fiat money. If companies are not willing to create a universal digital loyalty token with other businesses, then they can settle on the use of interchangeable tokens. A study by Kaleido Insights shows that the interchangeability of these digital reward tokens is beneficial to both the companies running loyalty programs and the participants.  

The treatment of blockchain-based digital tokens as currency makes them far more flexible and interchangeable compared to loyalty points. Participants can easily exchange such a digital token with other cryptocurrencies or fiat money. That means real financial rewards. Such flexibility gives customers more choice on how they should use rewards, increasing the value of the loyalty campaign, and encouraging customers to shop more from the brand. Digital reward tokens can go even be used for such digital transactions as buying other products and paying for services from other companies because cryptocurrencies have value beyond the brand that issued them. The eventual result is a loyalty coin economy, which, when used more, increases in value. 

Besides, blockchain gamification boosts the outcomes of loyalty programs and minimizes expenses including lowering of the transaction costs. With blockchain technology, a business can provide loyalty campaigns that are transparent and trusted by participants. The transparency brought by blockchain solutions is essential in loyalty programs. 

Blockchain technology will also bring a more streamlined experience in loyalty campaigns. When businesses carry out over one loyalty campaign, it can be challenging to manage both the company and the clients. Lack of a streamlined client loyalty campaign causes missed opportunities, wasted points, and frustration. 

Decentralized systems

Forbes explored the possibility of using a blockchain-based method using a single cryptocurrency, like bitcoin, across several brands or businesses. This decentralized finance method makes the loyalty campaign easier to run and track, saving time, and adding more value to the participants. 

A decentralized network will further ensure that participants enjoy more flexibility and choice, which inspires them to spend more. The method is best suited for bigger businesses, multinationals (such as the Banana Republic, Gap, and Old Navy), or businesses that are willing to partner with those from a complementing sector (like an airline firm, and a hotel chain).

A decentralized approach represents the future and present of digital transformation to some customer loyalty campaigns. For instance, Singapore Airlines and Delta Airlines have launched a blockchain loyalty campaign, substituting their air miles with digital tokens that used for retail purposes.    

Digital ownership through blockchain gamification

Rewards from certain games and gamified campaigns create virtual assets. For video games, for example, items can be acquired by successfully finishing assignments or by conquering rivals. These digital items can be made accessible to a participant or tied to particular accounts. Nevertheless, “ownership” is determined mostly by developers’ rules. 

Because virtual items carry some form of utility in the games, most people are willing to pay for these items. The value of digital items is around $15 billion. Trading of these items has become a significant activity for many developers. Most of them forbid the exchange of virtual items for cryptocurrencies as they term it as a violation of their terms of service. 

Gamification features and blockchain technology are the main ingredients for marketplaces for the trading of virtual assets. This way, blockchain can enable virtual ownership.

Solutions that act as secure markets for trading digital items can enhance the virtual item industry and connect it with other sectors. Blockchain solutions can boost the market capitalization of this industry. 

Blockchain is redefining the ownership of virtual items and transform them into a kind of financial rewards for users. The technology is a means of creating distinctive identifiers for virtual items market. Developers and publishers hardly offer tools that would permit the safe and secure trade of virtual items in their marketplaces. These platforms employ blockchain and smart contracts that allow gamers to trade among themselves safely. 

Trustworthy and fair mechanisms

Gamification is all about engaging customers through new rules, risks, and reward systems. Unluckily, centralized authorities tend to come up with rules that are only beneficial to them. Blockchain technology compels businesses to design and follow the set rules and create equitable risk and reward mechanisms. Decentralized derivatives are some examples of this. CloseCross, one of Espeo’s clients is part of this trend. The use of cryptocurrencies even allows for gifts, like those from loyalty programs, to carry more financial utility for users. The concept of digital ownership also brings more value to customers’ rewards. Users can be confident that through such methods, all parties will benefit from gamified campaigns. 

According to a PwC survey, almost 70% of customers pull out from loyalty programs when it asks for personal details. This is logical, especially with the increasing cases of online identity theft. Blockchain can reduce such risks. Since anonymity is one of the primary features of digital currencies, participants might not have to provide their personal information. Or, if the need arises, blockchain can keep their details more secure.

Blockchain records are fully transparent and trackable, making it even hard for the execution of unauthorized transactions. The PwC study further established that more than 72% of loyalty campaigns are victims of scams and counterfeit sales to acquire loyalty points for purchases they never made. Using blockchain technology to customer loyalty campaigns would enable brands to track loyalty points in real-time and deliver incentives to their clients more effectively. 

Conclusion 

Blockchain gamification in other industries is possible with applications designed to borrow aspects behind the success of the gaming industry. With blockchain technology, other areas can exploit the winning traits of the gaming sector. As blockchain technology continues to disrupt every element of business and daily life, gamification is ripe to follow suit. Carrying out faster, smarter, and more flexible loyalty campaigns can create and retain happy customers. 

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Blockchain Financial Services Technology

How enterprise blockchain applications can improve your firm’s internal processes

How enterprise blockchain applications can improve your firm’s internal processes

Enterprise Blockchain Applications – fill in the form and download your free copy.

How enterprise blockchain applications can improve your firm’s internal processes

Enterprise blockchain technology is a relatively new tool and companies are still working out ways to put its unique features to good use.

While there are plenty of dubious claims for what enterprise blockchains can do, getting up-to-date advice on how it will fit exactly is still difficult to find. Find out more in this e-book and learn if a blockchain is suitable for your business.

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Finance Financial Services Technology

How to ensure proper payment gateway integration with popular methods

How to ensure proper payment gateway integration with popular methods

Payment gateways are becoming more and more important players to improve the shopping experience and effective payment gateway integration is ever more vital. Credit cards, one-click payments, instalments, recurring payments, refunds, withdraws, digital wallets, invoice payment links — it’s good to have these technologies integrated into one place. Customers don’t want to remember multiple login credentials, and merchants are not happy digging through complicated system integration guides. Both sides want faster, easier and more secure operations.

Let’s see how we can bring modern payment solutions closer to our customers.

Payment gateway integration with popular methods

Table of contents:

  1. Deep analysis of integration documentation
  2. Security considerations
  3. Performing sandboxed payment gateway integration tests
  4. Receiving notifications from payment systems
  5. Adapting your system to API changes
  6. Logging communication with APIs for quick troubleshooting
  7. Final thoughts on Payment Gateway Integration
 

1. Deep analysis of integration documentation

Every payment method provides various integration guides. Starting from tutorials and frequently asked questions, going through software development kits tailored for the most popular programming languages and ending with a comprehensive API reference for developers. Dedicated people have to carefully study all these materials.

Most payment methods will have limited availability by countries and regions. They can be subject to different regulations that can cause transaction limits, limited functionality or additional formal requirements.

An example can be offering recurring payments for markets around the globe. Subscription models are very convenient for customers and merchants, but they usually require additional development work. Acquirers will expect you to distinguish all transactions made within a specific recurring payment plan from ordinary, one-time e-commerce transactions. A subscription plan is an agreement between a customer and a merchant. Your job is to keep track of that agreement by providing the initial transaction ID. Mexico’s Banamex also requires providing a unique contract number for every payment plan. If in doubt, always contact a support person from the payment provider’s side.

 
 

2. Security considerations

Payment solution providers will expect you to ensure the best security level possible. For example, PayPal provides extensive “Security guidelines and best practices” in their developers portal. One of the most common security measures is using the latest encryption protocols, maintaining anti-phishing processes and regular security audits. 

The basic requirement for a modern payment platform is using secure communication protocols. In 2020, the minimum version for transport layer security — TLS — is 1.2. Industry security experts have long considered older protocols — especially secure socket layer, or SSL — vulnerable. Payment methods will not accept connections using vulnerable protocols.

PayPal, along with many other providers, dropped support for TLS versions older than 1.2 back in 2016. It happened after the company discovered several serious vulnerabilities like POODLE and Heartbleed. Hackers could exploit these and breach the system. Also, the SHA-1 cryptographic algorithm is discouraged in favor of a stronger SHA-256. Security best practices change rapidly as new software versions emerge. Staying ahead of all these changes and setting them up is a huge challenge. 

Internet protocols change frequently in response to threats. The best practice is not to hardcode a specific version, but to let the software negotiate the highest version available. This can happen automatically, but still, your DevOps team has to be up to date with recent security news. Most payment providers will help you by sending informative and warning emails. Do not ignore any of them and set up any development or maintenance work immediately instead of rushing just before a deadline.

Apart from staying up to date with payment method news, you should take your own actions to reduce systems vulnerability. Check your integration standards against industry best practices at least once a year. Introduce anti-phishing processes and monitor spoof sites which could lead your clients to pass their sensitive data to scammers. Warn your customers and accept spoof site reports from them.

The payment industry often relies on professional security tools from reliable sources like iDefense or Veracode. These companies provide software for automatic known vulnerability scans, which it categorizes by severity. These scan reports often come with proposed solutions and even time estimates. Combined with development and continuous integration plugins, these tools bring invaluable help to your product team.

Security considerations are vital if you deal with customer credit card details. This includes not only the classic scenarios when a customer enters data directly in your form but also some electronic wallet solutions like Masterpass. This is even more important while using its express checkout functionality where a customer consents to share data without even logging into their Masterpass wallet. Other wallet providers like Apple Pay try to mitigate the risk by using payment tokens instead of actual card numbers.

 

3. Performing sandboxed payment gateway integration tests

During onboarding, all payment companies will provide sandboxing environments for development and testing. First, you receive a test environment account with a public/private key pair, and then login credentials. Your developers and quality assurance team can test all the integration scenarios.

Some providers, like Apple Pay or Trustly, will also perform additional acceptance tests for both frontend and backend integration, domain verification, and so on. Part of EVO Snap the mandatory certification process is to run test scripts in your application and send results to the certification team. Then, after receiving approval, you will be provided with live credentials.

Need a consultation or help? Work with us.

Make sure no data gets between your test and live environments. It would be very unprofessional for your customers to see some random test records. Even worse, your development team should not see any production data unless explicitly allowed.

In addition to making transactions with test cards in a sandbox environment, you might need to perform some transactions with real cards in a production environment.

 

4. Receiving notifications from payment systems

Integrating your payment system with external solutions is a two-way integration. Not only your application is going to send payment requests, but it also has to accept and respond to any notifications and feedback from a payment solution. The most obvious example is a notification confirming or rejecting payment. If a particular payment method does not receive a valid answer from your system, it will likely raise a warning.

Read the documentation carefully to learn what contact attempts you can expect from a payment method and how to respond.

 

5. Adapting your system to API changes

Every payment method provider can introduce changes in their APIs. Some of them do not break compatibility with existing integrations, some others do. These changes may occur due to different circumstances — either new business functionalities, new market regulations or simply removing obsolete procedures.

Of course, such updates are always announced in advance. Watch out for any announcements from your payment method providers. Do not ignore them! If they sound too technical for you, forward them immediately to your payment gateway integration development teams and ask for explanations. Usually, companies allow their clients at least six months to adapt. But time flies, so schedule an update as soon as possible.

 

6. Logging communication with APIs for quick troubleshooting

Sooner or later something will go wrong. Your customers will file complaints and your team will have to respond quickly. It is crucial to prepare for such cases by logging all communication with payment method APIs, so the team can perform a proper investigation.

What to log? Your software should at least query the exact API version of each payment method. This is basic information while reporting problems to a payment method provider. Every piece of information exchanged between your application and the API also has to be logged. Developers have to make sure that all the logs include transaction identifiers so that the support team can easily find all information related to that particular transaction.

However, excessive application logs are very difficult to browse. Your team has to use a log aggregator or browser which allows them to quickly find relevant information. Most log aggregators, like Logentries or Papertrail, are paid software-as-a-service platforms. The cost will be related to the velocity of the logs. While choosing a proper solution, analyze different payment plans. You need to be prepared for sudden spikes in application usage. Other solutions include hosted or self-deployed ELK Stack.

While it may sound unnecessary to invest money in yet another development or support tool, it is going to pay off quickly. For payment gateway providers, it is crucial to have a fast incident response time. Your support team needs a reliable tool to identify the root cause as soon as possible.

 

7. Final thoughts on Payment Gateway Integration

Payment gateways bring huge value to the market by simplifying payments for customers and merchants. Payment gateway integration with the payment methods your customers are using improves the UX and overall usefulness of the app. It is a payment gateway vendor’s job to ensure proper integration with payment method providers where every solution has a separate set of requirements. With more and more payment solutions coming, customers and merchants will put even more trust in payment gateways.

The article was written by Piotr Horzycki, Java & PHP developer at Espeo Software. To read more pieces by Piotr, you can visit his website or his LinkedIn profile.

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Blockchain Finance Financial Services

How blockchain can drive environmental sustainability accounting

People with environmental sustainability concept

Environmental sustainability has been a challenging field for management experts for a long time. This is particularly true for accounting professionals seeking to bring value and more transparent insights to customers. Multiple regulatory strategies give rise to this problem. That said, with the number of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) lined up for sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues are now swelling and with billions invested in sustainability programs.

Despite this increasing investor and market interest, nevertheless, sustainability accounting is something of a work in progress. Blockchain technology is already having a significant influence on traditional accounting functionality, but the link between sustainability, blockchain, and accounting deserves further analysis.

In this article, I will discuss how blockchain technology drives sustainable accounting through sustainability reporting, operating in an environmentally sustainable way, transforming carbon and other environmental markets, creating new sources for sustainable finance, reducing transactional complexity, incentivizing circular economies, and connecting the bottom line to everything else going on in a company. But before that, let us briefly look at how sustainability goes beyond risk mitigation.  

Sustainability is more than risk mitigation

While firms have long-established the business risks brought by issues such as scarcity of raw materials, air and water pollution, and climate change, and the essence of minimizing those risks, companies are only now starting to understand that sustainability is more than risk mitigation. 

Done well, sustainability-driven programs- improving energy efficiency, rethinking supply chains, and transforming business models- have the potential to drive competitive advantage, innovation, and revenue growth.

But few companies realize the full extent of these benefits today: a majority of companies all over the world need a better understanding of how sustainability can be translated into various types of business value, and how they can effectively evaluate the return on sustainability-driven initiatives before they can achieve this potential. Only then will such companies establish the business model they require to accelerate and deepen the integration of sustainability into business strategy and operations. 

Research has shown that companies with integrated, organization-wide sustainability models have better borrowing and revenue outcomes than their peers. These firms also consider revenue growth as the primary driver of their investment in sustainability. 

Blockchain technology can have an intense effect on development-based investment, not only by revolutionizing international payment systems but also via improvements to access to finance, supply chain management, and digital identities. This influence goes beyond traditional financial services and business processes and extends to other essential sectors, like agriculture, healthcare, and transportation.   

What is your potential blockchain ROI?

How can blockchain technology create new revenue opportunities for the accounting and financial service workforce? Precisely, how can specialists connect the seemingly distinct forces in sustainability, increasing accounting interest in this industry, and blockchain technology itself? 

Blockchain transparency will drive better reporting

One of the greatest and often quoted problems with sustainability accounting is that businesses do not always reveal non-financial information with the same energy as financial information. This can be even more noticeable and significant concerning sustainability information, which drives bottom-line performance, and exposes the company to significant risks if it ignores defilements.   

Blockchain technology fundamentally requires that all participants of the network communicate in an almost natural and transparent way. This implies that information concerning sustainability projects, not forgetting those with a financial orientation, like GE’s Ecomagination and those with an operational angle, like Coca-Cola’s Water Stewardship program, can be revealed, eliminating some of the dirtiness often associated with sustainability.

Blockchain’s data transparency not only facilitates collaboration between business parties but also fosters trust between businesses and consumers. For instance, the food and beverage industry faces rigorous compliance regulations that encompass everything from proper farming, processing, packaging, transportation, and storage of food- all meant to prevent foodborne diseases and strengthen the increasingly international food system.  

Standards built on a distributed ledger

There are several models currently available in the market that try to link sustainability initiatives and financial outcomes. Integrated accounting, other multiple models, put in place by accounting associations, and business-specific projects, all exist. The issue is not the lack of standards, but rather the absence of a consensus as to what should comprise measures. 

Smart contracts, in and of themselves, symbolize a perfect initial step towards creating standard and implementable protocols for executing businesses. Accounting for sustainability is not an exception but a priority. 

If the information is uniform, and leveraging on the first point, deliberated transparently, accounting practitioners can enjoy the detailed conversations needed to develop and improve full sustainability accounting standards. Importantly, such standards can be used across other areas of the economy, compared to the restricted protocols.

Transforming carbon and other environmental markets

Blockchain technology can provide cryptographic tokens with a tradable value to improve existing market platforms for carbon (or other substances) and create new opportunities for carbon credit transactions. 

A good case study is China’s Carbon Credit Management Platform, undertaken by Energy Blockchain Labs and IBM. The goal is that with the introduction of smart contracts, the transparency, auditability, and credibility of the Chinese carbon market will improve. In the future, blockchain could support an international carbon trading market for individuals, households, and companies.  

New Sources for Sustainable Finance

Blockchain-based finance platforms could potentially revolutionize access to capital and open up a whole new class of potential investors for projects to tackle environmental problems, from investment in green infrastructure projects to facilitating blended finance or charitable donations for developing nations. More broadly, there is the potential for blockchain to bring a system change from shareholder to stakeholder value and from traditional finance capital to accounting for social, environmental, and financial capital. 

Sustainability accounting is a revenue opportunity

This is probably the most exciting point for accounting experts desiring to create a business case about sustainability and technology. At the center of the growing technological integration, in the form of artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain technology and automation, financial services companies, and accounting businesses, in particular, are always looking for extra revenue lines. 

The increasing interest in sustainability, besides indicating a reporting change, is also a chance for forward-thinking businesses. Clients and customers, both current and potential, are going to be held accountable by various stakeholder groups interested in how the company is performing, and how the company is getting those outcomes. Professionals with the ability to connect these dots, between blockchain, reporting, and sustainability, are going to be well-positioned to benefit from this prospect. 

Blockchain technology, at least in the finance and accounting industry, is often regarded in equal measures of excitement and anxiety as it further hastens and magnifies the trends toward automation and eradication of traditional accounting roles. That said, only thinking about the potential of blockchain from the perspective of enhancing attest assets and tax roles overlooks the several opportunities blockchain can help create. 

Reducing transactional complexity

Financial transactions involving massive, cross-border sustainable development initiatives are becoming increasingly more complex, causing backlogs and delays. Blockchain-based platforms (crypto exchanges) and processes can handle multiple transactions more effectively. 

This implies that sustainable projects and other climate-related activities will be more appealing to investors.

According to a report from the World Economic Forum, “Blockchain-based platforms and processes can seamlessly handle a wide range of stakeholders working in various capacities on different projects globally. It will enhance efficiency, minimizing transaction and make climate-related, infrastructure, and other sustainable initiates more attractive for private investments.”  

Incentivizing circular economies 

Blockchain could completely change the way materials and natural resources are valued, handled, and traded through incentivizing people and companies to establish financial value from things that are currently wasted, discarded, or treated as economically invaluable. This could drive widespread behavior change and help achieve a truly circular economy. For instance, Plastic Bank has come up with a social enterprise that offers financial rewards in the form of cryptographic tokens in exchange for depositing collected ocean recyclable wastes. 

Conclusion 

Sustainability reporting, functioning in an environmentally sustainable way, transforming carbon and other environmental markets, creating new sources for sustainable finance, reducing transactional complexity, incentivizing circular economies, and linking the bottom line to everything else going on in the firm are trends likely to grow only more significant moving forward. Blockchain technology, already accelerating change in the accounting and finance sectors, can also open the doors to new opportunities for people and businesses eager to embrace these changes.

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