Bank of Baroda pilots industry-first ‘Merchant loyalty/ cashback programme’

Small and medium scale merchants such as local retail shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc., that have an account with Bank of Baroda, and are registered on the bobMerchant App, can now independently design and run cashback/loyalty programmes

Hyderabad: Bank of Baroda announced the pilot launch of a new functionality for merchants built on the ‘programmability’ functionality of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) — the ‘Merchant loyalty/ cashback programme’, in collaboration with a fintech company.

This industry-first initiative enables small and medium merchants to independently design and launch loyalty/cashback programmes for their customers, usually designed by large brands, using Bank of Baroda’s “bob Merchant App”.

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Merchants such as local retail shops, grocery stores, pharmacies, etc., that have an account with Bank of Baroda, and are registered on the bobMerchant App, can now independently design and run cashback/loyalty programmes, without the need to make any corresponding investments in procuring the infrastructure or software to operate such a reward programme.

Sanjay V Mudaliar, executive director, Bank of Baroda, said, “Our new ‘Merchant loyalty/cashback programme’ using programmable CBDC (PCBDC), a first in the Indian banking sector, is an innovative use case that empowers our small and medium-sized merchants to create tailored cashback offers that will foster greater customer engagement and retention.”