Merchants using payment authentication provider CardinalCommerce will now be able to accept bitcoin alongside alternative payment options including PayPal and Google Wallet.

The announcement is the result of a partnership between CardinalCommerce and bitcoin merchant processor Bitnet that enables merchants with custom-built shopping carts to send API messages to Cardinal's platform through its One Connection service.

As part of the integration, CardinalCommerce handles updates and changes necessary to accept the payment method, and will help facilitate refunds through Bitnet.

"As a merchant accepting bitcoin via Cardinal, if there was some change to the protocol or Bitnet's APIs, Cardinal would handle that. That’s a core value proposition that companies like Cardinal bring to their merchants," chief commercial officer Akif Khan told CoinDesk.

The service comes with a one-time access fee, as well as a monthly fee that includes additional costs based on customer clicks, not the dollar amounts of orders.

In statements, Cardinal SVP of merchant services Alasdair Rambaud suggested that the partnership is in line with the company’s goal of providing merchants with a greater variety of alternative payment methods.

Bitnet raised $14.5m in October of last year, and has since inked a prominent deal with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.

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