BNY Mellon experimenting with bitcoin rewards

According to The Wall Street Journal, developers for Bank of New York Mellon Corp have been testing bitcoin, dubbed as "BK Coins", for use as part of the bank's recently created corporate recognition program.

The bitcoin will be rewarded to the employees for contributions towards the bank's software development, and will be redeemable for gift cards and other rewards.

The announcement was made by BNY Mellon Chief Information Officer Suresh Kumar during a meeting held last week. He pointed out that experimenting with bitcoin is well within bank's broader goals of researching open-source software for its growing needs.

"There is a big mindset change that comes with many of these new technologies. So if we can find a way to make it tangible, in a controlled environment like our internal employee recognition program, then we have a great opportunity to help our businesses better understand the potential value", he said.