Key takeaways
- Verifone to allow over 600,000 U.S. merchants to accept selected cryptocurrencies as payment in partnership with BitPay.
- The cryptocurrencies involved include Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and others.
- Verifone has joined other payment providers in facilitating the broader adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Verifone, a global FinTech leader and payment solution provider to the world’s largest retail brands, announced a partnership with BitPay, a leading provider of bitcoin and cryptocurrency payment services. The partnership will extend BitPay’s blockchain payment technology to enable consumer cryptocurrency payments on Verifone’s in-store and eCommerce Cloud Services platforms in the United States.
According to Verifone, the new solution which will begin rolling out later this year will enable merchants to broaden their customer base and promote crypto acceptance while being protected from the price volatility of the cryptocurrency market.
When rolled out, the solution will allow merchants that utilize Verifone’s payment solution to accept cryptocurrencies from their customers at checkout and settle the transaction to their bank account in their preferred fiat currency almost instantly with BitPay in the background. The customers can use their preferred native wallet to make the purchase with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), Litecoin (LTC), and 5 USD-pegged stablecoins (GUSD, USDC, USDP, DAI, and BUSD).
This is a welcome development for cryptocurrencies as it will drive adoption even further as Verifone services over 600,000 merchants worldwide and handles over 10.4 billion online and in-store transactions annually. This was also noted by Stephen Pair, co-founder, and CEO of BitPay.
“Verifone’s merchant base includes many of the world’s largest and most well-known brands looking to tap into the growing crypto market, this partnership allows these businesses to easily and securely accept crypto payments, and benefit from pent-up consumer demand to spend crypto.” Pair said in the official announcement of the partnership.
The partnership also gives Verifone exposure to cryptocurrencies through a strategic investment in BitPay while also helping it stretch its platform’s capacity which has been described as robust.
Recently, the adoption of cryptocurrencies has been ramping up and Verifone is not the only payments solution provider adopting Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Notably, Visa as well is currently partnered with Coinbase, Circle, and BlockFi to allow its cards to access crypto wallets on those platforms. Visa said digital payments such as cryptocurrency have the potential to disrupt $18 trillion of annual consumer spending with cash and checks. It has also moved to allow the use of the cryptocurrency USD Coin to settle transactions on its payment network.
Similarly, MasterCard recently announced its plans to acquire cryptocurrency intelligence and analytics firm CipherTrace for an undisclosed sum before the year runs out and had previously made several other investments in the digital assets space.
