Bitcoin Payments Coming to South Africa’s Largest Supermarket Chain: Report
The crypto climate in South Africa has only gotten warmer in recent months. In a new development, Pick n Pay, billed as the country’s largest supermarket chain, is preparing to open Bitcoin payments starting with 39 stores nationwide. However, this move was not unexpected. Pick n Pay has been testing crypto payments for a while before making sure that the large-scale implementation of the feature is on track and beneficial.
Once implemented, crypto holders will be able to scan a QR code from Choose n Buy and accept the conversion rate at the time of checkout. Customers will also be allowed to use a currently unnamed ‘trusted app’ to make cryptocurrency payments at the supermarket.
During testing, Pick n Pay selected Electrum and CryptoConvert to allow testers to pay over the bitcoin lightning network, Cointelegraph reported. The Lightning protocol speeds up transactions on the Bitcoin network.
It’s basically an extension of Pick n Pay’s crypto-payment tests.
According to South African news site Tech Central, the crypto payment feature will be rolled out more widely in the coming months.
This development echoes the exponential growth of cryptocurrency in South Africa.
The crypto market in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa together saw a growth of 1,200 percent, reaching a market valuation of $105.6 billion (approximately rs 775) in a single year, a report by Chainalysis announced last September.
On October 19, the Financial Sector Regulatory Authority of South Africa (FSCA) classified crypto assets as financial products.
Follow Reuters The country plans to regulate the burgeoning fintech sector by licensing crypto companies and changing foreign exchange controls to monitor cross-border crypto transactions. .