Bitnet, a Belfast start-up led by former Visa and CyberSource executives, has sealed a deal with UATP that will enable 260 airlines from around the world to accept bitcoin payments.
UATP is a global payment system that is used by many of the world’s airlines, railways and travel agencies.
Airlines that use the system include Delta, Ethiad, Luhfthansa, Quantas, US Airways, United Airlines and American Airlines.
“We are always looking for skilled partners to bring additional forms of payment to the UATP processing platform and Bitnet fits the bill well,” said Ralph Kaiser, president and CEO, UATP.
The Bitnet team already has a decade of experience implementing payment and fraud-management solutions for airlines.
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This experience influenced the design of the Bitnet co-system to simplify the acceptance of bitcoin by airlines.
“Partnering with UATP was an obvious choice for Bitnet,” said Akif Khan, vice-president of Solutions Strategy, Bitnet.
“Our partnership will make it easier for UATP’s member airlines to accept payments in bitcoin via a lightweight integration that avoids impact to downstream systems and leverages existing UATP reporting and refund interfaces.
“Bitnet and UATP share the same mission of lowering transaction costs and fraud risk for their clients.”
Bitcoin for business image via Shutterstock
