HIPS and The Payment House to enable crypto payments for taxis

By Megha Bhattacharya

E-commerce and mobile payment solutions provider Hips Payment Group has announced a partnership with The Payment House in a bid to enable payment with cryptocurrency in over 20,000 taxis in Scandinavia and 10,000 taxis in the UK. The solution, to roll out in beta November 2021, will use the Hips Merchant Protocol (HMP) and its Merchant Gateway (HMP-gateway) over Ethereum. HMP, HMP-gateway and the governing Merchant Token (MTO) is a solution that introduces consumer protection concepts from the traditional card payment industry to the Ethereum blockchain, among others.

“With this important partnership, Hips provides another avenue for crypto payments to have market penetration. The consumer-oriented features of the MTO will further allow cryptocurrency to gain worldwide mass adoption among mainstream consumers,” said John Cavebring, CEO of Hips.

The companies stated that Merchant Token (MTO) and USD Coin (USDC) will be the only tokens available to pay with at this time, while other cryptocurrencies will be evaluated after beta. The companies aim to enable the customers to easily use crypto payments at real-time transaction speeds and a convenient payment method not currently in use.

“We are pleased to partner with Hips, as this new payment convenience will enable taxi companies to seize more opportunities in the new economy. This partnership takes payment processing to the next frontier for transaction services,” said Staale Reiersen, Group CEO of The Payment House.

Recently, Banking Circle and HIPS Payment Group announced a partnership for enabling the latter to offer payment settlement with domestic payment rails. This will equip HIPS to provide simplified payments for its global merchant base with users able to purchase goods or services in their own currency. The two companies are collaborating to mitigate the need for bureaucratic systems and legacy tech.