South African Supermarket Chain Pick n Pay Now Accepts Bitcoin Payments: Report

Pick n Pay, one of South Africa’s largest supermarket chains, is now allowing customers to pay using bitcoin via any Lightning Network-enabled app, according to South Africa’s The Times.

The payment method was tested across 10 stores over the past five months and it is now available in 39 stores across the country, according to The Times.

The Lightning Network is a layer 2 scaling solution for the Bitcoin blockchain. It significantly reduces the time it takes to send a transaction and it is also notably cheaper, making it more appealing to merchants.

“The transaction is as easy and secure as swiping a debit or credit card. Customers scan a QR code from the app and accept the rand conversion rate on their smartphone at the time of the transaction,” a spokesperson for Pick n Pay said in the report.

“The service fee for each transaction is minimal, costing the customer on average 70c [about $0.04], and takes less than 30 seconds,” the spokesperson added.

According to the report, Pick n Pay has plans to roll the payment method out to all of its 1,628 stores over the coming months.