- Toyota Systems, the IT offshoot of the car maker, has announced plans to trial an in-house digital currency in conjunction with Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DeCurret
- The trial will see 2,500 Toyota systems employees rewarded with digital tokens which can be exchanged for gifts from the company’s welfare program
- The concept could eventually be rolled out to Toyota drivers
Toyota Systems, an IT subsidiary of Toyota Motors, has announced that it is working with Japanese cryptocurrency exchange DeCurret to create and issue its own cryptocurrency. The token will be the central point of a trial which will see 2,500 Toyota Systems employees exchanging them for “catalog gifts and welfare points” in a system that could be rolled out to Toyota drivers in the coming years.
Toyota Systems Working With DeCurret
Toyota Systems and DeCurret announced the pilot via a press release yesterday which actually gave little away about the details of the scheme, except to say that the companies were working together to help Toyota Systems in “issuing its own digital currency for this demonstration experiment.”
The experiment in question will see 2,500 Toyota Systems employees using the tokens to test the ability to purchase goods from Toyota’s welfare and gift program:
Specifically, the digital currency granted by Toyota Systems employees as a welfare program will be used exclusively for demonstration experiments. It can be used in exchange for catalog gifts and welfare points designed for.
First Step Toward Driver Rewards Program?
Despite the Toyota Systems trial seeming somewhat unrelated to the company’s core automobile offering, the press release gives us a glimpse into the broader purpose of the scheme, with the cryptocurrency reward program potentially rolled out to drivers in the future:
Researching the use of currencies and verifying the payment mechanism for the realization of a new society together with Deecaret. Together, we aim to promote unprecedented technology and service development and create new value and business.
Toyota’s move is not the first by a carmaker to get involved in digital currencies. Last April Jaguar Land Rover announced a pilot program with IOTA where mIOTA tokens would be credited to drivers in return for data collected from cars, and it seems that Toyota Systems could be creating a similar system for the carmaker.
