Digital River and Coinbase have announced that the two firms are working together to provide bitcoin payment processing to merchants.  Under terms of the deal, Digital River, a publicly traded provider Commerce as a Service solution, is integrating Coinbase’s bitcoin payment processing service to its small to mid-sized commerce SWREG solution.  Online merchants using SWREG, and selling in the US, will now be able to accept bitcoins along with other existing payment options such as credit cards, bank transfers, and PayPal.

A payment service provider (PSP), Digital River acts as the merchant of record between online consumers and acquiring banks.  The advantage of such a setup is that it allows Digital River to lump transactions into single relationships with banks and credit card companies.  Merchants then partner directly with Digital River without needing to create relationships with each payment provider and banks.  As a result, SWREG customers have access to accepting funds for each payment type Digital River offers within one checkout solution.

Join the iFX EXPO Asia and discover your gateway to the Asian Markets

On the news Tom Peterson, executive vice president and general manager of commerce at Digital River stated, “Bitcoin continues to attract more mainstream attention. We’re excited to be among the first pure play ecommerce providers to make the cryptocurrency available for small to mid-sized businesses interested in providing their online shoppers more payment choices and added convenience.”  He added that “Because Digital River acts as the merchant- and seller-of-record, our international base of customers can accept and process bitcoin payments in their U.S. online stores with less risk than they could on their own.”

 (More on the deal and PSP’s at Payment Magnates)