International Car Tour Company Isilines Accepts Bitcoin Payments

International bus travel has become a trend these days. Isilines, a French bus tour company and a subsidiary of the Transdev Group, is experimenting with cryptocurrency payments. They are the first company in the industry to publicly announce the acceptance of Bitcoin payments and hope to become a new model in the next few years.

Isilines has been experimenting with Bitcoin payments since August 2, 2016. Any passenger using their bus service can pay for their tickets using the cryptocurrency. Although this is currently just an experiment, the company hopes that accepting cryptocurrency payments will become a trend in the future.

Isilines and Paymium collaborate on Bitcoin payments

The bus tickets can be paid for with Bitcoin when booking on the company's website. The company has not said whether it will be possible to pay on the bus soon, but it seems unlikely. These sightseeing tours require advance booking of tickets because this is not your normal public transport service, Isilines is an international tour.

Some people may also wonder what the benefits of accepting Bitcoin payments are compared to using traditional payment methods to buy tickets. Faster transaction confirmation, no additional costs, and real-time conversion to the Euro are the main reasons. In addition, Isilines also accepts payments from bank accounts during weekdays. Bank card payments may take days or even weeks to be fully confirmed.

Richard Dujardin, CEO of Transdev France, sees the policy as a "groundbreaking innovation". Companies have nothing to lose by accepting Bitcoin as an alternative payment method. The worst case scenario is that no one uses this option, then the company will not spend anything. At the same time, accepting Bitcoin payments will also attract a group of customers who are more curious about new things.

To implement the Bitcoin payment solution, Isilines partnered with Paymium. Paymium is a name that may be familiar to the cryptocurrency community. This French Bitcoin startup specializes in merchant tool development and converting Bitcoin payments into Euros. In addition, the company provides services that comply with European law.