Aliant Payment Systems, a U.S. based provider of merchant services and credit card processing, announced today that it has entered a strategic processing relationship with BitPay, the Atlanta based bitcoin payments provider.

This relationship makes Aliant one of the first payment processing companies to offer merchants the ability to accept payments in bitcoin.

Earlier this year, Aliant paired with Merchant e-Solutions to expand its client roster to include accounts with higher annual processing volumes, such as e-commerce, travel, and B2B companies. With these types of businesses being more likely to get hit by credit card fraud, they are attracted by the prospect of accepting bitcoin, as doing so reduces their risk.