Smith’s food and drug stores will no longer accept Visa Inc’s credit cards, according to Kroger Co. The reasoning behind the statement is that the fees are too high.

Visa Inc and Kroger Company

Kroger Company is a major one in the United States of America. According to their website, they have nearly 2800 stores in 35 States and annual sales of more than $115,3 billion. However, not the whole company will disregard the Visa. It is their Smith’s Food and Drug stores that will no longer accept the credit card company. Kroger’s smith’s consist of 134 stores across seven states with over 20,000 employees. The company argues that the fees Visa have are excessive.

“Visa has been misusing its position and charging retailers excessive fees for a long time. At Smith’s, Visa’s credit card fees are higher than any other credit card brand that we accept.” Said Kroger Chief Financial Officer Mike Schlotman.

Interestingly, it will be the second company to stop accepting the credit card company following Foods company in California. Visa even plans to increase its fees in April. However, these will apply only to banks and not to vendors. The problem is that banks are rarely known to absorb costs as it reduces profits. More than likely they’ll pass these increases on to the merchants who use their services.

Will the Kroger’s stores move to cryptocurrencies instead?

Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ethereum are not widely used for payments as of yet. Even though the U.S. prepares for a wider acceptance of cryptos by making cryptos available throughout thousands of grocery stores, consumers do not use it much. However, it gets easier and easier, and even Argentina plans to launch 4000 bitcoin ATMs throughout the country.

While not many famous stores accept bitcoin, the community speculate if the Japanese version of Amazon, Rakuten, might accept cryptos shortly. In a statement, they said that it would support “all payment solutions,” which may include cryptos.

Meanwhile, Kroger might not choose crypto as a payment solution, but Pompliano, the co-founder of Morgan Creek, rose to the occasion. He tweeted that he will fly and meet the team to propose bitcoin’s lightning network as a potential candidate.

Grocery store @kroger is stopping acceptance of @Visa in over 250 stores because of network fees.



Who knows someone on the leadership team there?



The Morgan Creek Digital team will fly to meet them and get them hooked up with the Lightning Network nationwide. 🔥🙏🏽 — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 2, 2019

Just finished up first call with someone on Kroger Digital team.



World-class, forward thinking crew.



Looks like things are progressing.



Stay tuned 🙏🏽 — Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) March 3, 2019

Today, it is possible to buy Domino’s pizza, among other products and services, with the lightning network. Around two weeks ago, over 150 people purchased a pizza with bitcoin. A number that probably has risen by now. It is too early to know if Kroger will accept bitcoin but it is a possibility and we will see how it plays out in the near future.

Image Source: “Flickr”