17 June 2014 / MINNEAPOLIS USINESS WIRE) — Digital River, Inc. (NASDAQ: DRIV ), a leading global provider of Commerce-as-a-Service solutions, today announced it has added bitcoin as a payment option for merchants that are selling online in the United States and using its small to mid-sized commerce solution . Bitcoin will now be available along with other international payment options, such as credit and debit cards, wire transfers, bank transfers and third-party wallets.
“Bitcoin continues to attract more mainstream attention,” said Tom Peterson, executive vice president and general manager of commerce at Digital River. “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.
“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,” added Peterson. “In addition, this business model creates an opportunity for our customers to offer payment solutions that may be in earlier stages of adoption in their domestic markets.”
Digital River partnered with San Francisco-based Coinbase , a bitcoin wallet and platform provider, to handle the conversion of bitcoin into U.S. dollars and process the payments. “The payments world is energized by talks of digital currencies,” said Souheil Badran, Digital River World Payments’ senior vice president and general manager. “One of the bigger risks faced by merchants is dealing with the volatility of the digital currency market. Partnering with Coinbase allows Digital River to help mitigate that risk for our customers.”….. Read more
