Bitcoin accepted here? You’re damn right. Peregrine Corporation, a South Australian group of companies, has teamed up with global exchange giant Crypto.com to introduce crypto payments in all its OTR stores.

The Shahin family-owned Peregrine is the largest privately owned company in South Australia and is probably best known for its On The Run (OTR) convenience store/petrol station outlets, of which it has more than 170 across South Australia and Victoria.

From July, Australians will be able make payments for fuel, food, and more using various cryptos at all OTR outlets. Smokemart and Giftbox stores will be accepting the new payment option, too. The OTR sites include service stations, C Coffee dine-in and drive-through cafes, Subway, Hungry Jacks, Oporto, Wokinabox and others.

The partnership will also see the Singaporean exchange Crypto.com officially launch and implement its Pay Merchant crypto-payments settlement service, in conjunction with a third party – Datamesh.

Sydney-based payment systems provider Datamesh will be installing point-of-sale terminals in the Peregrine outlets, which will allow customers to pay through the Crypto.com app using their cryptocurrency holdings. This follows the roll-out of Crypto.com Visa cards in Australia last year.

 

Yasser Shahin, Executive Chairman of Peregrine Corporation said: “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.

Crypto.com General Manager Asia & Pacific, Karl Mohan meanwhile described the deal as a “landmark partnership”, adding that it enables the crypto company 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.”

 

Crypto.com’s Aussie foray

This is Crypto.com’s second partnership in South Australia, after announcing an extensive multi-year agreement to sponsor the Adelaide Football Club earlier this year.

In fact, Crypto.com clearly has a thing for AFL. As well as signing a $25 million five-year deal with the league itself in January, as well as the AFLW, it’s since deepened partnerships with four other clubs – the Fremantle Dockers, Gold Coast Suns, GWS Giants and the Richmond Tigers.

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

A survey conducted by Crypto.com and Worldpay from FIS in February revealed that only 4% of globally surveyed merchants are already accepting crypto as payment, but nearly 60% of merchants are interested in accepting the payment option this year.

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

 

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