Ingenico, a French-based global payments provider, has paired up with BitPay to bring bitcoin payments to the point-of-sale terminal.

The companies announced yesterday (Oct. 6) a new integration to allow merchants to accept bitcoin payments, which is an industry first for the payments ecosystem. As noted in the announcement, bitcoin, by its very nature, is most commonly associated with eCommerce payments, but now the digital currency is headed for the traditional brick-and-mortar side.

"At Ingenico our mission is to be at the forefront of any payment method and to provide secure transactions for both the merchant and the end customer,” said Miguel Angel Hernandez, managing director of Ingenico Iberia. “Participating in such an important project has allowed Ingenico Group to demonstrate its leadership in the payment space and bring a safe and secure payment method like virtual currency to the end user."

This technology made its debut yesterday in Barcelona at Blockchain Week, which concludes tomorrow (Oct. 8). This payment integration was created by BitPay but installed on an Ingenico terminal ICT250. For those consumers wanting to cash in their bitcoin at the POS, they can do so by showing a QR code, which can be scanned on a mobile phone to make a payment.

"We are excited to partner with Ingenico Group, one of the leading payment processors in both physical and online commerce," said BitPay Executive Chairman Tony Gallippi. "This integration will help us expand bitcoin payments to thousands of retail payment terminals worldwide."

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