Kroger bans Visa payments from 134 grocery stores

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As the low transaction costs and convenience of using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin SV (BSV) become more obvious, traditional retailers are abandoning the old ways. On March 1, retailing giant Kroger announced their 134 Smith’s Food & Drug stores would no longer accept Visa credit card payments, citing high fees.

According to reports, the grocery stores will no longer accept Visa as of April 3. The reasoning is that swipe fees, or the amount paid to credit card companies by the operator to carry out the transaction, are simply too high when they can be as much as 3% of the total bill.

Korger’s chief financial officer Mike Schlotman said:

“We’re not going to stand for these high fees… They conceal from customers what Visa and its banks charge retailers to accept Visa credit cards. At Smith’s, Visa’s credit card fees are higher than any other credit card brand that we accept. Visa’s excessive fees and unfairness cannot continue to go unchecked.”

3% fees can be extremely unreasonable, especially when operating a business that is operating on thin profit margins. What’s worse, credit card companies sometimes charge those fees simply to prop up rewards systems that most customers never use, increasing profits for themselves.

Not too slow to miss an opportunity, representatives from both the Bitcoin Core and Ripple communities have offered their services to Kroger, suggesting that they could step up and fill the void. Considering though that neither network appears ready to fill the void that a massive payment provider like Visa would leave, it would be understandable if you don’t see a “Lightning Network” payment option at your Krogers anytime soon.

Kroger previously banned Visa cars from their Foods Co stores as well. In total now, Visa won’t be accepted at 155 stores that Kroger owns nation-wide.

If Kroger does want to consider a cryptocurrency option that is ready to operate with low fees, the only one that could massively scale to serve its 2800 stores nationwide is Bitcoin SV.

BSV transaction fees are the lowest they’ll be able to find, and its stability and scaling plan, which has already seen 103MB blocks and has plans for much higher, guarantees it as the only crypto blockchain solution that is ready for the kind of massive enterprise adoption they will need.

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