After talking positively about the cryptocurrencies last month, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, provided more details about the ways the famous global coffee house chain would integrate the blockchain technology into its operations. In an interview for Fox Business, Schultz said the blockchain technology would most probably be used for payments and talked about the possibility for Starbucks to launch its own cryptocurrency in the future.
Schultz said: “I think blockchain technology is probably the rails in which an integrated app at Starbucks will be sitting on top of. In the last four of five years, Starbucks has created the base for a digital and integrated system for mobile payments. Almost 50% of the received payments come from smartphones.”
This distributed app could be a payment application that would expand the already existing Starbucks mobile app. The possibility of having a distributed app that would use Starbucks’ own blockchain network is a key step towards the goal of launching a new cryptocurrency that would be used for payments in Starbucks coffee houses around the world.
The CEO of Starbucks also said: “We are testing the cashless shops where there is no cash handling and we are getting more and more efficient in this field. In China, 70% of the business is cashless and in the next few year, many of ours shops in the United States will also be cashless. I said before this was not about bitcoin. With the platform we have for out mobile app and our business plans, I believe we could potentially be one of the first companies to have its own digital currency integrated in our app.”
Howard Schultz pointed out that the company keeps taking decisions with the long-term perspective in sight. He also said the key question for Starbucks is how a retailer with physical shops can be relevant outside the shops, how to expand this experience to other areas.
In a press conference about the earnings of Starbucks in 2017 held at the end of January this year, Schultz said he did not consider bitcoin to be a currency, but he did not discard the possibility that some cryptocurrencies survive thanks to their usability and legitimacy of their brand. He said: “Personally, I believe there will be one or more trustworthy and legitimate digital currencies based on the blockchain technology.”
