Perk Labs Inc. announced a comprehensive technology upgrade, which includes a new merchant payout system, universal shopping cart and single sign-on. All of the architectural changes will support the scalability and fast, frictionless experience that Perk Hero merchants and customers require and expect. The new merchant payout system is a new and unique method for merchants to connect their bank accounts to Perk's platform when they sign up to Perk Hero and to receive payment for products sold through Perk Hero. Previously, Perk Hero relied on Stripe's platform to connect with and payout to bank accounts and did not have the desired controls, insights and reporting functionality with respect to merchant payouts. The new Perk payout system allows Perk Coin product development to be more loosely coupled, which will allow for faster innovation, testing and scalability, and is a required step towards Perk Coin becoming a blockchain-based rewards platform. The new universal shopping cart feature makes it easy to shop simultaneously from a variety of brands and retailers on Perk Hero. Previously, while the checkout process was easy, customers were limited to checking out at only one merchant at a time. Now, with universal shopping cart, customers will be able to add multiple items from various retailers to their cart and checkout all together on Perk. Development of the universal shopping cart and the new payout system is complete and Perk plans to complete the migration of all merchant customers from Stripe payouts to the new payout system and deploy universal shopping cart by the end of the month. Perk's new single sign-on feature streamlines the login experience for new and existing customers across multiple platforms. Customers and merchants can now sign up or sign in to both Perk Hero's mobile app or website using their Google or Apple account, in addition to their phone number. By making the sign-up process simpler and more seamless, Perk believes that it will increase its conversion rate for customers that visit its app or website and then sign up as registered users.