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September 24, 2018 • Issue 18:09:02
Cryptocurrency appeal growing

among merchants, processors

with iPayment merchants," he said, adding that the company
also is "in discussions" with Paysafe about expanding the
relationship.
High-risk merchants lead early adopters

Aliant has about 30 merchant level salespeople (MLSs)
signed up and selling cryptocurrency processing services.
"It's another tool in their toolkit to go out and sell," Brown
said. He said the company is boarding about five to seven
new merchants a week, adding "We expect that to ramp up."

There are several brands of cryptocurrency, including Bit-
coin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple. Aliant
supports payments in Bitcoin (the largest), Ethereum and
Litecoin. Brown said Aliant has developed a direct cryp-
By Patti Murphy tocurrency plugin for two of the largest ecommerce plat-
forms, WordPress and WooCommerce, and it can create
nterest in cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, continues custom application programming interfaces for integrating
unabated, even as market values of these digital cur- with others. Aliant also offers a cryptopayment button for
rencies has tanked in recent months. And while there the Poynt smart mobile POS device.
I is no groundswell of demand from merchants for
cryptocurrency acceptance, proponents believe it's only a At 3.5 percent plus 10 cents per transaction, the fees Aliant
matter of time. "There's not a ton of volume right now, but charges merchants accepting cryptocurrencies undercut
this is coming," said Eric Brown, CEO of Aliant Payment those charged high-risk clients for credit and debit card
Systems Inc. "The train has left the station and it's going to payments, Brown noted. Also, there is no risk of charge-
run over the credit card industry if it's not prepared." backs when accepting cryptocurrencies, and there are no
reserve requirements, Brown added. Yet another draw for
Aliant, headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is one
of a handful of merchant services providers offering
cryptocurrency processing. In May 2018, Aliant revealed it
had been selected by iPayment Holdings Inc. to facilitate Contributed articles inside by:
cryptocurrency acceptance by iPayment merchants. Shortly
after, iPayment was acquired by Paysafe Group.
Steve Norell ............................................................................................32
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Paysafe made Adam Atlas ..............................................................................................36
its own foray into the cryptocurrency space this year, Barry Davis ..............................................................................................38
launching a cryptocurrency exchange by its online Brandes Elitch ........................................................................................40
payments subsidiary, Skrill. That service currently supports
purchases and sales of four different cryptocurrencies
in 36 counties, but not the United States.Brown said the
arrangement with iPayment (now rebranded as Paysafe) TOC on page 3
hasn't been affected by the acquisition. "We're still working

Continued on page 30