The major French payment gateway present in seven countries and processing €5.5bln per year integrates bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies may follow.

The decision to start accepting cryptocurrency payments was announced by Lyra Network in a press release on 12 January. Bitcoin is integrated into PayZen, an online payment platform run by the company. The new solution especially targets online merchants interested in bitcoin. Emmanuelle Ghara, Development Director of Lyra Network, explained main reasons for the decision:

“By offering bitcoins on our online payment platform we show our capacity to quickly integrate innovative payment methods, regardless of their underlying technologies. In the future, it will allow us to be able to integrate any other cryptocurrency without further delay.”

The integration is assured by the French bitcoin start-up Paymium, the leading European bitcoin-euro exchange service and payment processor. It allows its clients – and, therefore, the clients of Lyra Network – to choose if they wish to receive bitcoins or automatically convert bitcoin payments, totally or partly, into euros.

Based in Toulouse, Lyra Network is an electronic payment processor founded in 2001. It has branch offices in Algeria, Brazil, Chile, Germany, India and Spain. According to the press release, half of all payments in France are executed via the company. The total amount of processed payments reached €5.5bln in 2014. It is used by 35,000 merchants.

Alexey Tereshchenko