By George Ward
With the rising trend in crypto adoption, South Africans can now use Bitcoin to pay for everyday purchases. According to the Sunday Times, one of South Africa’s largest retailers, Pick n Pay, is currently testing Bitcoin as a payment method and plans to introduce it to all its outlets soon.
Pick n Pay grew to 39 outlets in just five months after the retail store’s inception. As the current phase moves forward, the top retail company intends to incorporate the choice of crypto payments into more retail locations while gauging consumer reaction to the innovation.
Pick n Pay owns 16% of the food and grocery market in the country and runs close to 2,000 stores there. According to Pick n Pay, people who are underserved by traditional banking systems or those looking for a more affordable and practical way to exchange money increasingly use cryptocurrencies.
The South African cryptocurrency payment processor CryptoConvert, the Bitcoin wallet provider, Electrum, and Pick n Pay have partnered to allow Pick n Pay customers to use the Bitcoin Lightning network.
Users can pay with Lightning wallets through Pick n Pay’s crypto payment gateway and on-chain Bitcoin transactions, making even the smallest payments possible. Last year, the adoption of Bitcoin by El Salvador served as a prominent example of Lightning’s use. It keeps transaction costs to a minimum and ensures almost instantaneous settlements.
Pick n Pay also stated that it would tack on a small service fee for payments made in Bitcoin, costing the client typically 70 cents of the local currency, or about $0.04 at the time of writing.
The transaction is just as quick and secure, according to Pick n Pay, as using a debit or credit card to swipe it. Two weeks after South African authorities published a statement outlining their intentions to treat Bitcoin and other crypto assets as financial products, Pick n Pay announced the payment integration.
South Africa’s Crypto Space
The country’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) started to clarify regulatory requirements for the emerging sector. Carel van Wyk, the founder of CryptoConvert, commented on the development and emphasized the rising adoption rate of cryptocurrencies in South Africa as the motivation behind this move.
Despite the growing adoption of blockchain and its asset, he emphasized that the industry is still in its early stages. However, like many other nations, South Africa has embraced cryptocurrency. According to a recent Triple-A survey, a recent increase in crypto awareness among South African business owners caused 59.7% of business owners to adopt cryptocurrencies.