This is a guest contribution by Andrew Egan, writer and editor who covers high risk payment processing including Bitcoin processing on behalf of Soar Payments. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

Traditional payment processing is built on the payment processor / bank sponsor model, in which merchants and their transactions are facilitated by payment processors, but ultimately underwritten by the processor’s sponsor bank. This bank sponsor oriented model, which dates back to the origins of Visa and MasterCard, has virtually ensured that risk aversion has taken precedence over payments innovation and technology adoption in the payments industry.

That is not to say, however, that established payment processors and their banks are entirely immune to market pressure, but rather that the case for new technology and payment type adoption must be extremely strong before a large processor will take the leap. To that end, the case for accepting Bitcoins for payment processors has, over the last year, become so strong that it is my contention that it is virtually inevitable that 2016 will see significant increases in payment processor incorporation of bitcoin processing into their platforms.

In this article, I have outlined four stat based arguments that make a strong case for payment processors that have heretofore been on the sidelines, that the business opportunity virtually mandates that they begin accepting bitcoins in 2016.