Pick n Pay, a South African grocery chain, has announced that it would start accepting bitcoin in its stores.
On November 1, Pick n Pay began to roll out bitcoin payments to 39 of its store locations, claiming that the next several months will see this new program extended to all of its locations.
This figure includes roughly 2,000 storefront locations in South Africa and around a 16% market share of the nation’s grocery sector. In addition to these operations in South Africa itself, Pick n Pay operates in a more limited capacity in six other African nations.
In other words, a complete bitcoin adoption from this grocery chain would mean that millions of people in new markets would have an opportunity to use bitcoin in an easily accessible setting.
This development is an expansion of the 10 stores previously running a trial version in the past several months. With the expansion, customers are now able to seamlessly conduct transactions with bitcoin in the 39 stores.
The payment processor used for this is simple and convenient, allowing both on-chain bitcoin transactions and near-instantaneous micropayments on the Lightning Network.
Customers are able to pay their grocery tabs with bitcoin stored in any wallet or the self-custody option of their choosing, and transaction fees typically add up to about 70 cents.
In a press release, the company claimed, “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.”
Carel van Wyk, the founder of CryptoConvert, a firm setting up these payment options, said, “Crypto payments are still in their infancy in South Africa, but we are already seeing adoption in parts of our society that haven’t previously had access to traditional financial systems.”
