Businesses can allow a growing set of customers who wish to buy goods and services using crypto to do so directly, and get settled in rands. Picture: Supplied
Payments infrastructure company Stitch announced the launch of a new payment method: Pay with crypto.
With this method, businesses can allow customers who wish to buy goods and services using crypto to do so directly, and get settled in rands.
Cryptocurrency adoption continues to grow in South Africa. A study from Binance indicates that around 7.7 million South Africans own cryptocurrency today, often purchased using popular exchanges such as Binance and VALR.
Globally, interest in using crypto to pay for goods and services is on the rise, and those who choose this method are spending more than their peers.
Stitch president Junaid Dadan said, “Cryptocurrency adoption in South Africa has been one of the highest in the world. There’s a massive audience that would prefer to use their crypto to make payments. We’re excited to offer Stitch clients an opportunity to reach and serve this audience, without the need to take on direct volatility risk, thanks to our Pay with crypto method.”
With Stitch Pay with crypto, businesses in South Africa can offer customers the option to make a deposit using crypto stored in their VALR or Binance wallets, or send Bitcoin or Ethereum directly.
The business will then get settled in rands, so they don’t need to worry about managing currency fluctuations.
Here’s how it works:
Blake Player, head of growth at VALR, said, “We’re excited to see yet another partner building on top of the VALR Pay API. The Stitch integration expands the options VALR customers have to spend crypto balances in South Africa to the e-commerce market. The interest we’ve had in working with the VALR Pay product has been amazing, and we’re expecting high growth in the volume of crypto payments as it becomes more widely accepted.”
Virtually any business that accepts digital payments can offer Pay with crypto. Example use cases include:
Businesses that already leverage Stitch for other payment methods can add Pay with crypto to their existing integration.
BUSINESS REPORT