OTR and Crypto.com partnership to accept crypto payments at 170 outlets across south Australia and Victoria from July 2022


Convenience
store and gas service station On The Run (OTR) has partnered with Singapore-based
cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com using its Pay Merchant service as its
payment settlement layer. This deal was done to begin accepting
cryptocurrencies for payments at 170 outlets across South Australia and
Victoria sometime in July this year.
All stores, including
service stations, C Coffee cafes dine-in and drive-through, Subway stores, Oporto, and Wok in a Box restaurant, will be set up to accept payments in
cryptocurrency. This service will enable Australians to make payments for gas, and snacks in more than 30 cryptocurrencies. As expected, starting this system in
July will make the company become the largest business in the country to
accept in-store crypto payments. With the help of Datamesh, a Sydney-based
payment systems provider, customers will be able to pay using the Crypto.com
app with their cryptocurrency holdings. In metropolitan Adelaide and regional
Australia, this will affect all points of sale of merchant terminals of the
corporation's group of companies.
Peregrine
Corporation which is a 38-year-old company is the parent company of OTR that
has a presence across 160 locations throughout South Australia and Victoria. It
is one of the largest privately-owned companies in South Australia and it will
also be accepting crypto at its Subway, Oporto, and Smokemart stores. As per Peregrines’
executive chairman Yasser Shahin, this step for the company was an opportunity to
enter into the cryptocurrency arena “The growth and mainstream acceptance of
cryptocurrency adoption in Australia and the rest of the world have 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.”
Senator Andrew
Bragg in March announced the Digital Services Act (DSA), a legislative
proposal aimed at reforming market licensing, custody, and taxes, stating he
wants to see Australia become a “crypto hub” and that the country is “open for
business.”
The earlier partnership done by Crypto.com:
In Australia, this
is Crypto.com’s second partnership. In January the company made an announcement
of a multi-year agreement to sponsor the Adelaide Football Club. The company
said a technology and payments company DataMesh Group, will bring Crypto.com in
as an accepted ‘payment type’. In November last year, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency
company announced it had bought the branding rights to rename the Staples
Center in Los Angeles ‘Crypto.com Arena’.

Joyashree Dey
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA