Whether it’s going to legacy payment technology trade shows or partnering with legacy payment processors, Bitcoin companies have found that there is something to be said for partnering with the old rather than just forgetting it exists.

Bitnet today announced that it had joined forces with Cardinal Commerce, a global provider in the remote payments industry. Now, all of the companies in the Cardinal Commerce platform will have the option of implementing bitcoin acceptance. These include international retail giants such as Lenovo, Toshiba, GameStop, Tiffany & Co., and Urban Outfitters. It also includes leading travel companies such as Delta Airlines, Orbitz, Travelocity, and Hotwire.

As with many of the bitcoin payment processing technologies, merchants will be able to price their goods in one of 60 currencies, be paid in bitcoin, and then receive the funds in their local currency without ever having to touch bitcoin.

“Cardinal is thrilled to be able to offer our merchants the ability to accept bitcoin through our newest payment brand partner, Bitnet. The many benefits of bitcoin make it a win-win for merchants and customers around the globe,” said SVP of Merchant Services at Cardinal Commerce, Alasdair Rambaud, in a prepared statement.

One of the benefits of this partnership for the merchants is that Cardinal will handle all of the maintenance for accepting bitcoin payments and won’t need to route a new program into the system.

This represents an attractive opportunity for small businesses that might not have the IT budget required to support multiple payment platforms to now accept bitcoin. Consider the difficulty a small mom & pop shop would have trying to integrate a second system for accepting payments. By working through these traditional payment providers, they can accept bitcoin without even knowing they are.

Last week, Julia Patterson, communications manager at BitPay, a competitor of Bitnet, told Bitcoin Magazine that traditional payment companies are not opposed to accepting bitcoin.

“Businesses working in the traditional payments industry are usually excited about getting involved with Bitcoin once all of their skepticism has been addressed,” she said. “No large payments company is going to adopt Bitcoin on a whim.”

For Bitnet, partnering with Cardinal Commerce opens an avenue for fast adoption.

“Cardinal is the ‘go-to’ provider for cutting-edge payments solutions, so it is no surprise that our friends at Cardinal are as excited as we are at Bitnet to help merchants eliminate fraud while reducing processing costs through bitcoin acceptance,” said co-founder and CEO of Bitnet, John McDonnell.

Background by Freepik