Toyota is testing an unusual formula to stay closer to its customers. The Japanese brand began exploring digital bonds as an extension of the services it already offers through Toyota Wallet, its platform for payments and mobility-related solutions.
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The proposal has a financial component, but also points directly to loyalty.
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The company wants those who already have some connection with Toyota to find new reasons to stay within their ecosystem.
Toyota Finance has launched the Toyota Wallet Tsumugu Bond, a one-year corporate bond backed by blockchain technology. The issuance runs around $6.26 million and includes shares from approximately $626 dollars.
The product uses the ibet for Fin network, developed to operate regulated financial assets. Therefore, although it uses blockchain, it should not be confused with a cryptocurrency or an asset intended to be traded freely on exchange platforms.
The operation is integrated directly with Toyota Wallet. The app, which already brings together different financial and mobility services, thus adds an investment alternative that extends its utility beyond the needs related to a vehicle.
The bonus has restrictions on its transfer. Buyers will not be able to move it freely to any digital wallet, sell it on a cryptocurrency exchange, or use it within decentralized financial platforms.
In fact, blockchain fulfils a more administrative than speculative function here.The technology allows to register the ownership of the asset and manage transactions within a controlled environment.
For the customer, the important variables remain the usual ones in any bonus. The performance, timing, established conditions and financial capacity of the issuer remain key elements before making a decision.
Toyota wants to give the proposal an additional attraction through benefits directly linked to the brand. Buyers will be able to access, under certain conditions, rewards within Toyota Wallet and participate in Fuji Speedway-related drawings.
There are also experiences associated with Toyota, Lexus and Gazoo Racing. In this way, the investment ceases to be isolated from the automotive activity and begins to connect with other spaces of the relationship between the company and its customers.
The strategy is interesting because Toyota is not using blockchain to create a new cryptocurrency. It is testing, rather, how a digital tool can serve to unite financial services, vehicles, experiences and benefits in a single ecosystem.
The bet can also give Toyota a more direct way to keep in touch with its users. If the formula works, Toyota Wallet could become much more than an app for managing payments and services, with loyalty as one of its main goals.
