Austria’s leading telecom company, A1 Telekom Austria Group, has announced that its merchant payment service now accepts cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, for cashless payments. The company operates in seven countries and has 25 million customers.
A1 Telekom Austria Group is a leading provider of digital services and communications solutions in Central and Eastern Europe. Listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange, the company has about 25 million customers and over 18,000 employees. It currently operates in seven countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Belarus, Slovenia, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
The group announced Monday that its A1 Payment service now supports cryptocurrencies, stating:
As of now, A1 Payment is accepting digital currencies for cashless payments.
With A1 Payment, retailers across Austria can accept digital currencies in addition to other popular payment methods, such as Maestro, credit cards, and Alipay, the announcement continues.
The company clarified that retailers receive the purchase price in euros whenever customers pay with cryptocurrencies. “This eliminates any exchange rate or currency risk” and merchants do not need to have knowledge about cryptocurrencies, the company noted. “Payments with digital currencies such as bitcoin, ethereum or dash are converted into euros in real time at the cash desk.”
A1 Payment terminals are provided by Ingenico, the world’s leading payment terminal provider. Concardis provides the payment software for card payments. Salamantex, an Austrian fintech company that specializes in payments, provides technical solutions for accepting cryptocurrencies.
Salamantex announced earlier this month the integration of its software into the A1 Payment system to enable more than 2,500 merchants to accept cryptocurrencies. Monday’s announcement followed a pilot program A1 Telekom conducted in August last year for selected shops to accept bitcoin.
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