- Pick n Pay announced the integration of cryptos at all its tills in its stores.
- The move will allow customers to pay for goods with crypto using their smartphones.
- Customers can scan a QR code from the app and accept the Rand conversion rate on their smartphone.
Pick n Pay, one of South Africa’s largest grocery stores, announced the integration of Bitcoin and other cryptos at all its tills across its stores in months to follow. The move is a plan of the pilot phase that will allow customers to pay for goods with crypto using their smartphones.
The announcement comes a few weeks after the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) officially recognized bitcoin assets as financial products in South Africa, levying the path for regulation and widespread acceptance of cryptos as a legitimate form of payment.
A spokesperson for Pick n Pay in an interview said:
Increasingly, cryptocurrency is being used by those under-served by traditional banking systems or by those wanting to pay and exchange money in a cheaper and really convenient way. Many companies are responding to this by accepting Bitcoin
Over the last five months, the grocery giant used pre-selected testers to run the first part of the trial at 10 stores in the province of the Western Cape. With the objective of implementing it throughout all stores in the upcoming months, it has now expanded its reach to an additional 29 stores for consumer testing.
To avail the feature, customers can scan a QR code from the app and accept the Rand conversion rate on their smartphone at the time of the transaction. The service fee for each transaction is minimal, costing the customer, on average, 70 cents while taking less than 30 seconds.
Kuben Naidoo, the deputy governor of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), told during an interview in May that regulation of crypto assets was imminent and might take effect in nine to fifteen months after regulators first stated they wanted to do so in November 2020.
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