A major supermarket chain in South Africa, Pick n Pay, has started a trial to accept bitcoin payments in-store at its head office location. A payment technology company named Electrum provides the payments platform, with bitcoin exchange Luno providing the Bitcoin payment infrastructure. n Pay is the second largest supermarket chain in South Africa, behind only Shoprite. The company is trialing bitcoin payments at its head office campus store, its payment solution provider Electrum recently announced:
In what is potentially a world first for a major grocery retailer, Electrum has enabled Pick n Pay to accept bitcoin payments in-store.
Electrum provides the cloud-based enterprise payments platform used for bitcoin transactions. It is the first time for the company to provide a bitcoin payment solution.
Founded in 1967, the Pick n Pay group currently employs more than 80,000 people. The company sells food, clothing and general merchandise. The group has 1,560 stores in total, located in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Swaziland and Lesotho. However, the trial is only at the head office campus store in Cape Town where customers can pay for groceries and services using bitcoin.