South African-based fintech firm Stitch has introduced Pay with crypto, a new payment method that makes it possible for customers to pay directly from their crypto-currency wallets.
This, as crypto-currency continues to grow in the local market, with 7.7 million South Africans reportedly owning crypto-currency, to date.
The same can be said on the global front, with interest in using crypto to pay for goods and services also on the rise.
In a statement, Stitch says the new payment method means local merchants can now accept crypto payments from customers wishing to buy goods and services.
Stitch president Junaid Dadan comments: “Crypto-currency 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.”
Stitch is an application programming interface fintech start-up launched in February 2021, with offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, and Lagos, Nigeria.
It creates infrastructure to help businesses connect to users' financial accounts to enable seamless transactions. It counts companies such as MultiChoice, MTN, The Foschini Group, Standard Bank’s SnapScan and Yoco among its enterprise clients.
The company says ‘Pay with crypto’ gives customers the option to make a deposit or check out using crypto stored in their VALR or Binance wallets, or send Bitcoin or Ethereum directly.
To access the payment method, a customer chooses ‘Pay with crypto’ at checkout and selects their preferred wallet and crypto-currency. Stitch will convert the crypto to ZAR and settles the merchant in ZAR on the following business day.
Stitch indicates that any business that accepts digital payments can offer ‘Pay with crypto’, including online marketplaces and e-commerce businesses, gaming and trading platforms, as well as local and international travel providers.
Blake Player, head of growth at VALR, comments: “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 in 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.”
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