In the latest Business Chat episode, Greg Stewart hosts Inge Oosthuizen from Eccentric Payment Systems to discuss the growing importance of cryptocurrency payments for South African merchants. The conversation highlights the increasing adoption of crypto payments, especially among younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials.
Inge explains that crypto transactions are becoming seamless and indistinguishable from traditional payment methods, with benefits such as low fees and next-day settlement in local currency. The discussion also touches on the regulatory landscape, noting that while crypto was once seen as untraceable, it is now heavily regulated, reducing risks for retailers.
Inge shares insights into the volume of crypto transactions, revealing that top-tier retailers process over a million rands worth of crypto currency payments monthly in South Africa. The episode concludes with a look at the future of crypto in mainstream finance, suggesting that as adoption grows, the financial system may increasingly integrate cryptocurrency.
Listen Here:
Key Quotes from Inge Oosthuizen:
- “”Crypto payments, especially under the younger generations, are becoming more and more of a trend.”
- “The entire landscape has become from anonymous to absolutely scrutinized. So fraud and those type of activities that were always associated, no more, no more. And that’s why the risk for the retailer is hardly anything anymore. Because it’s real time and every detail is logged and immutable basically.”
- “If we look, for example, at one of the best performing retailers, so Tier 1, that’s our biggest type of retailer that we have in South Africa, they process currently over a million rands worth of crypto in South Africa. It’s massive. We underestimate that on a monthly basis.”
- “The retailer benefits at the end of the day because they are settled in RAND next day, hardly any fees associated. So remember, we’re taking out the banks and the schemes with these type of transactions. So the retailer knows exactly what they’re going to get in the bank account, less fees and hardly any integration costs to be able to offer the consumer this wonderful solution.”
