Binance Pay Unlocks Everyday Crypto Spending in South Africa

Crypto is no longer just for traders and hodlers. With Binance Pay now live across South African online stores through partnerships with Peach Payments and MoneyBadger, paying with crypto has become frictionless, fast, and surprisingly familiar. For local founders building in fintech, this is a signal. Crypto payments are no longer experimental. They’re quietly becoming part of the default rails for checkout.

“It’s time we stop talking about potential and start integrating crypto into real use cases,” says Larry Cooke from Binance Africa. “This is stablecoin infrastructure designed to scale.”

Binance Pay supports over 100 cryptocurrencies and settles transactions instantly. Shoppers select “Pay with Bitcoin or Crypto” at checkout, scan a QR code, and confirm. The merchant gets paid in rands the next business day, sidestepping volatility and gas fees.

MoneyBadger’s backend handles the crypto-to-rand flow, while Peach Payments ensures merchants receive settlements through their familiar payment stack. The result is an onramp that makes sense to the average South African merchant.

Co-founder Carel van Wyk, whose track record includes SnapScan and Luno, says consumer appetite is ahead of most retail strategies. “People are already using crypto to pay for real things — hardware, light fittings, airtime,” Van Wyk notes. “This isn’t some hype cycle. It’s day-to-day utility.”

In the first six months of 2025, MoneyBadger processed more than 19 500 transactions totalling R7.7 million, up from R5.6 million in the same period last year. These are not abstract blockchain metrics. They are real-world conversions.

The Online Retail in South Africa 2023 report shows that e-commerce is still growing steadily. Mobile-first shoppers, pay-by-bank features, and wallet integrations are shaping how customers expect to transact.

Anine de Kock, head of partnerships at Peach Payments, believes crypto’s growing role is just a natural extension of that trend. “We’re seeing real volume from crypto wallets — not just tech-savvy early adopters, but everyday South Africans using crypto the way others use Zapper or SnapScan,” she says.

For South African founders building cross-border platforms, digital-first marketplaces, or alternative finance apps, this evolution is key. Binance Pay has already processed over $230 billion globally across 300 million transactions. And it’s now doing it from within one of the largest fintech ecosystems on the continent.

With crypto regulation in South Africa steadily formalising and stablecoins gaining traction for their low volatility, the move from investment to infrastructure seems inevitable. The entry of Binance Pay into the local payments stack, through two homegrown fintech players, is not just another integration story. It is a challenge to entrepreneurs and developers across the region.

“If crypto payments are already working for spades and light fittings, what else can be built with the same rails?” asks Van Wyk.

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