Starbucks president Howard Shultz said the coffee chain plans to incorporate blockchain technology and digital currencies into its long-term payment methods, and hopes to "expand digital relationships with customers."
However, Shultz does not believe that Bitcoin plays a role in this strategy, and noted that he did not believe that the original cryptocurrency was "a currency today or in the future".
He clarified that Starbucks is not developing a digital currency or announcing an investment in Blockchain or in digital currencies, but would like to use its name to give credibility to these technologies.
Shultz made the statements in the call of quarterly investors of the company, who were subsequently informed by diginomica, a news web portal.
According to the report, he stated :
"I think we're heading into a new era, in which blockchain technology will provide a significant level of digital currency that will have an application for the consumer."
Starbucks, he added, is in a unique position to take advantage of the changes.
"We believe that we have something to offer to the companies that are pursuing this, since we are in a position to create the legitimate place of trust in which the technology could be accepted and possibly take advantage of the digital mobile payment platform we have created."
The platform Shultz refers to is the Starbucks mobile payment application, launched in 2015, which allows customers to pay and place orders in the application, while accumulating rewards.
Mobile payments make up nearly a third of Starbucks transactions in the United States, and as a result, Shultz said Starbucks is considering implementing stores without US cash.
Starbucks has a history of embracing cutting-edge payment solutions. He adopted Square as the exclusive processor of all his debit and credit card transactions in the fall of 2012, although the relationship dissolved later.
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