Peregrine enables retail crypto payments

Peregrine Corporation, a South Australian group of private companies, and cryptocurrency exchange, Crypto.com, have established a partnership to enable its retail customers to make payments using cryptocurrencies at all its point of sale (POS) terminals.

Alongside the partnership, Crypto.com also launched its new payment gateway for merchant services in Australia, Pay Merchant, after it unveiled an app and released Crypto.com VISA cards in Australia last year.

Technology company and Peregrine’s payment partner, DataMesh Group, will allow Crypto.com to be accepted as a payment type across Peregrine’s in-store POS terminals in South Australia and regional Australia.

Australians will be able to make retail crypto payments at over 170 On The Run (OTR) convenience stores, Smokemart sites and Giftbox outlets owned by Peregrine, including service stations, C Coffee dine-in and drive through cafes, Subway, Oporto and Wokinabox restaurants.

“The growth and mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency adoption in Australia and the rest of the world has been phenomenal and has offered us a clear opportunity to tap into the momentum of this fast-growing space for the benefit of our customers,” Yasser Shahin, Executive Chairman of Peregrine Corporation, said.

“Our payments partner DataMesh has enabled Peregrine to take advantage of emerging payment trends and be a market leader in offering our customers alternative payment choices across our point-of-sale terminals. This is part of the trend that sees OTR as a leader in payment innovation.”

Karl Mohan, General Manager Asia & Pacific at Crypto.com, said the company was excited to build the “future of technology, payments and business” with Peregrine.

“This landmark partnership enables us to walk the talk on what we set out to do when we first launched in Australia: support our customers to pay with cryptocurrencies at real-time market prices and avoid the cost and hassle of fiat conversions,” he said.

This comes after research conducted by Crypto.com and Worldpay from FIS found 75 per cent of global Crypto.com customers are interested in using cryptocurrencies to purchase goods and services.

“Australia continues to be a key focus of our global expansion strategy due to its crypto-friendly environment and robust customer protections,” Mohan said.

“As the cryptocurrency sector continues to become mainstream – with around 23% of Australians holding crypto today – creating avenues for people to spend their crypto in the real world are becoming increasingly important.”