Beginning this October, The Biden Administration has confirmed a record-high increase to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that will raise its average benefits for recipients by more than 25% from pre-pandemic levels. In the meantime, the pandemic relief legislation has temporarily offered a 15% boost in the program that is set to expire on September 30.

As more Americans are becoming eligible for these benefits, grocery store and supermarket merchants are adapting their payment technology to accept customers’ SNAP EBT cards along with an array of other payment options (EMV chip card or magnetic stripe, etc). This expansion of SNAP, along with the notable increase in online grocery ordering, presents the perfect opportunity for ISVs and grocers to start accepting SNAP. In 2020, online grocery sales grew 54.0% to reach $95.82 billion. That propelled it to a 12.0% share of total US e-commerce sales and 7.4% of all grocery sales. Amazon and Walmart, along with a slew of grocery chain retailers, accept SNAP benefits for online grocery purchases and delivery.

Grocers are migrating toward innovative payment integrations to help streamline the checkout experience for both in-store and online transactions. Merchants are able to process transactions more quickly and securely while eliminating traditional manual processes, recordkeeping errors, and lengthy checkout times.

Sola not only supports in-store SNAP processing, but we’re also one of few gateway providers that supports SNAP EBT online. Contact us today to learn more about Sola’s support for SNAP EBT online and in-store!