Consumers can already use Centrapay’s wallet app to pay at more than 2,000 Coca Cola vending machines with over 100 cryptos
Coca-Cola Amatil, the bottling company for Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia, has invested in crypto payment processor Centrapay.
According to a Sept. 3 Centrapay announcement, its venture arm, Amatil X, completed a minority investment in Centrapay’s seed funding round. The two companies are already working together to bring QR code-based crypto purchasing to Coke vending machines in the region. This is done using Centrapay’s Sylo Smart Wallet.
“Amatil’s customers can use their Sylo Smart Wallet at any one of our 2,000+ vending machines with a QR code payment sticker,” said Alex Remington, head of Amatil X. “These are located across New Zealand and Australia and will accept payments in cryptocurrency or other digital assets with a scan of your phone’s camera when Sylo Smart Wallet is installed.”
The wallet supports more than 100 cryptocurrencies and can be used to send fiat money between users in a peer-to-peer fashion.
Payments to see a quick transformation
Centrapay is specializes in facilitating the adoption of crypto as a means of payment and facilitating direct contact between brands and consumers in a way that increases revenue. The firm is also expanding to provide means for merchants to accept contactless payments, giftcards cards and vouchers without having to pay transaction fees, while still using their usual point-of-sale device.
Coca-Cola Amatil is not the only major firm that Centrapay is working with. According to the company’s featured customer list, fried chicken behemoth KFC, distiller Jack Daniels, sportswear producer Adidas, gasoline giant BP, soft drink producer Fanta, and brewers Beck’s, Carlsberg and Heineken all also use the firm’s services.
“The fact that Coca-Cola Amatil has invested in Centrapay through Amatil X, shows that there is a real appetite to provide customers with new ways to engage or to exchange value,” said Centrapay CEO Jerome Faury. “The global money supply is evolving rapidly with new economic models and the advent of smart, programmable money. The way we exchange value is set to change dramatically. There’s more change likely in the next 10 years than we’ve seen in the past 100.”
Both Amatil X and Centrapay “are committed to preserving consumers’ privacy and data ownership rights, whilst increasing business value,” said Faury.
The undisclosed sum invested will be used to accelerate integration with point of sale and payment terminals, and facilitate more direct contact between consumers and brands.
Are cryptos taking off as a means of payment?
The adoption of cryptocurrencies as means of payment had a start that can be defined as slow when compared to the usual exponential development speed of digital technologies. That being said, the rate at which companies announce developments in this space is clearly accelerating.
At the end of August, Switzerland’s top online retailer Galaxus announced the first e-commerce payment using the stablecoin pegged to the Swiss Franc issued by local bank Sygnum Bank. In late July, Australia’s leading point-of-sale technology provider announced its intention to test stablecoin micropayments based on the Hedera Hashgraph distributed ledger technology.
As Modern consensus reported in May 2019, also cryptocurrency exchange Gemini announced that its wallet app will be usable at Whole Foods and Baskin Robbins. EBay also teased support for it.
Author: Adrian Zmudzinki
Read more at: https://modernconsensus.com/cryptocurrencies/coca-cola-amatil-invests-in-crypto-payments-firm-centrapay/
