Pick n Pay is seeing roughly R1 million in monthly sales from shoppers using crypto to buy and pay for goods and services — up from R25,000 in the months after launching the functionality in February last year.
This is according to a new report from cryptocurrency exchange Luno, titled Bridging Digital and Fiat: Crypto’s Role in Modern Payments.
The report noted that the growth in Pick n Pay’s crypto sales is a huge jump from the R25,000 per month it recorded in the months following the launch.
However, it’s still a small number compared to traditional cash sales. It noted that Pick n Pay’s Supermarkets division in South Africa alone reported R71.4 billion in the 2023 financial year.
Pick n Pay introduced Bitcoin as a payment method at all of its stores nationwide in February 2023 through a partnership with CryptoConvert (now Moneybadger).
Moneybadger had rolled out its CryptoQR platform across Pick n Pay’s entire store footprint, allowing shoppers to make Bitcoin payments using the Lightning network.
The rollout included PnP Express and Pick n Pay Clothing. Shoppers can also buy airtime, electricity, flight and bus tickets, and pay municipal bills with Bitcoin at the till.
Pick n Pay’s national rollout of CryptoQR followed the expansion of its Bitcoin payments trial to 39 stores in November 2022.
It had partnered with Electrum and Moneybadger to develop the system. Electrum’s payment platform was used to connect Moneybadger and Pick n Pay.
“While for many years crypto was something for specialists on their computers, or used by early adopters trying it out, things are changing,” Pick n Pay said at the time.
Pick n Pay said the Financial Sector Conduct Authority’s declaration of cryptocurrency as a financial product also paved the way for cryptocurrency as a mainstream payment method.
“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,” it said.
Luno said that Pick n Pay’s surge in crypto payments from R25,000 to R1 million per month was driven by partnerships between exchanges and fast-growing crypto payments companies like Moneybadger.
Over the past year, Luno, VALR, and Binance have announced partnerships with Moneybadger to integrate their wallets and payment systems with CryptoQR.
“If the global financial ecosystem is one big circle, crypto as an investment is a speck somewhere on the periphery, and crypto payments are even less conspicuous than the investment case, but it’s growing,” said Moneybadger founder and CEO Carel van Wyk.
Van Wyk also co-founded Luno.
“It’s the niche use cases beyond investment that we’re currently exploring. We’re going to see these pockets continue to grow and eventually start connecting,” he said.
“Initially, we had a couple of these little dots in the circle, and it’s expanding with these new use cases, but it’s still very much on the fringes of the traditional financial system.”
Luno said the Pick n Pay experiment has made crypto payments possible for many South African shoppers and shone a light on crypto as money, not just as an investment.