I used Luno Pay to buy products at Pick n Pay, and it was faster than my credit card

We tested Luno Pay at Pick n Pay, and it was surprisingly quick and easy to buy products using Bitcoin at the retailer.
Luno Pay allows customers to pay merchants, like Pick n Pay, directly with cryptocurrency from a Luno wallet.
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 revealed that it processes roughly R1 million in monthly sales from shoppers using crypto to buy and pay for goods and services.
This represents significant growth. It is up from R25,000 in the months after launching the functionality in February last year.
I decided to put the service to the test and visited our local Pick n Pay store, which accepts Bitcoin as payment.
When I reached the till point and wanted to pay, there was initial confusion because the cashier did not know about Luno Pay.
Luckily, I saw the contactless QR option on the payment terminal and told the cashier that was what we wanted to use.


After scanning the QR code with the Luno app, we got a simple confirmation window with the total rand value of the transaction and an option of currencies from which to pay it.
We only had Bitcoin in the Luno account, so we paid BTC 0.00002094 for the R22.99 bottle of Coke.
Luno states that it charges no service fees on these transactions.
Depending on which exchange’s prices you look at, we paid a few cents more or less than we were supposed to, supporting the fact that there are no hidden costs.
The whole transaction — from scanning the code to when the slip started printing — was quicker than it usually takes my credit card to authorise.
Users need to be aware that payment using crypto can have tax implications, which could be difficult to calculate for various small transactions.
Paying with cryptocurrency is not a feature that most people will actively use, but making it easily available will go a long way toward improving its usability.
It means that users don’t need to sell their crypto assets on an exchange and cash out their Rands before spending in a store.