Following a successful pilot phase, digital asset custody platform Fireblocks has launched its new payment engine for merchants, opening up pathways for businesses to settle and accept cryptocurrency transactions across jurisdictions.
Fireblocks’ new Payments Engine is said to provide “turnkey solutions” for businesses that want to integrate digital assets into their operations, the company announced Monday. The platform allows payment service providers to incorporate new crypto payment rails and accept, settle and process digital asset transactions instantly. The platform also supports cross-border internal settlement, micropayments and merchant adoption with lower processing fees.
Ran Goldi, Fireblocks’ vice president of payments, told Cointelegraph that the solution is “token-agnostic,” meaning that payment service providers can incorporate whatever type of digital assets they want. “They can use any of the 42 blockchains and 1,300+ tokens that Fireblocks supports,” he said. Goldi also clarified that, due to a confluence of factors, including regulatory changes, stablecoins have emerged as the front runner for digital asset payments.
Payments Engine was piloted by payments processor Checkout.com, which settled $1 billion in merchant transactions using the solution. On Monday, Fireblocks announced that FIS, the world’s largest merchant acquirer, would also begin piloting the solution. FIS manages Worldpay, a multi-billion-dollar payment processing company it acquired in 2019.
Fireblocks expanded its infrastructure offerings to include crypto payments when it acquired First Diigtal, a stablecoin settlement platform, in February 2022. As reported by Cointelegraph, the estimated $100 million acquisition allowed Fireblocks to add business-to-business, business-to-consumer and cross-border payment support services.
The acquisition came at a time when more retailers were signaling their intent to adopt crypto payment services shortly. A survey of 2,000 senior retail executives in the United States conducted by Deloitte in December 2021 revealed that 75% of respondents were planning to accept both stablecoin and cryptocurrency payments within 24 months.
Related: Walmart CTO says crypto will become a ‘major’ payments disruptor
Meanwhile, a 2022 study of merchants with an annual income of at least $1 billion revealed that the vast majority of businesses were already pivoting to digital assets. The survey, which was conducted by PYMNTS and Bitpay, found that 85% of merchants were looking to adopt crypto payments to grow their customer base.
On the topic of merchant adoption, Goldi said those using crypto payments generally fall into two camps: crypto natives and traditional merchants. Crypto native merchants “are used to handling crypto on a day-to-day basis and most likely have vendors who are willing to accept crypto as payment,” he said. “Traditional merchants are curious and interested in leveraging crypto. They understand the benefits and are now trying to figure out how to incorporate the technology into their legacy systems.”
