South African grocery giant Pick n Pay to accept crypto payment

South African grocery giant Pick n Pay announced it will start accepting cryptocurrency payments across all its branches, according to Nov. 1 local news reports.

The crypto integration will allow its customers to pay for groceries with cryptocurrency via ‘trusted apps’ on their smartphones or by scanning a QR code to accept rand conversion rate at the time of payment, at 39 branches and at all stores in the coming months.

For the past five months, Pick n Pay has been running its own experimentation in ten select stores in the province of the Western Cap and has already expanded the pilot to 29 additional stores.

The transaction fee for each fee costs an average of US$ 0.70 and takes less than 30 seconds to process.

The new technology enables the grocery giant to provide an affordable service for high volume, low-value transactions that will bolster financial inclusion in South Africa, according to Pick n Pay group executive for IT, Chris Shortt.

The move follows several weeks after the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) officially recognized bitcoin assets as financial products in South Africa. 

‘Increasingly cryptocurrency is being used by those underserved by traditional banking systems, or by those wanting to pay and exchange money in a cheaper and convenient way. Many companies are responding to this by accepting bitcoin,’ said the FSCA.

Photo: Business Wire