D-Wave, Satispay Build Quantum-Optimized Rewards Program

Quantum computing company D-Wave and Italian fintech startup Satispay have developed a quantum-hybrid application to optimize customer rewards initiatives.

Satispay offers a mobile payment service in Italy and France that enables members to pay in physical and online stores and exchange money between friends.

They can also top up phone credits, pay bills, get vehicle tax stamps and make charity donations. Satispay also supports payment slips for pagoPA, an electronic payment system for Italian public administration entities.

To encourage customers to use it rather than more traditional electronic payment methods, Satispay offers rewards.

The companies used D-Wave’s constrained quadratic model hybrid solver, which is accessible via D-Wave’s Leap quantum cloud service. They said the application showed an improvement of 50% in customer rewards programs for the same budget but did not disclose how they measured this.

Satispay intends to roll out the quantum-hybrid application into production, beginning with internal teams using it weekly.

“Digital payments represent one of the fastest-growing trends in financial services,” said D-Wave vice president of quantum business innovation Murray Thom.

“By applying the power of quantum-hybrid technology to optimize Satispay’s customer acquisition strategies, we’re helping one of Europe’s top fintech companies unlock a competitive advantage and bring its independent payment network to more customers, faster.”

“It is our mission at Satispay to simplify payments to improve everyone’s life, and we’re looking at innovative ways we can accelerate adoption and usage of our network to quickly build out our market footprint in service of that vision,” added Satispay founder and chief technical officer Dario Brignone.

“Together with D-Wave, we’ve built a quantum-hybrid application that has demonstrated immediate business value at scale, helping us more effectively manage our rewards program to save money, improve rewards appreciation and drive increased membership.”