girocardGermany's dominant debit scheme, historically co-badged with Maestro or V PAY. With Maestro gone, it has to find a way to be accepted abroad and online.Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (through EURO Kartensysteme GmbH) · since 19908.3 billion transactions in 2025 (up 4.8%) worth about €308 billion; up to 1,344,000 active terminals; 88.5% of transactions contactless in December 2025 (Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft / girocard.eu, 2026)
Global registry · Europe · Western Europe
Germany Payment systems
10 systems listed.
CurrencyEuro (EUR)
Domestic schemegirocard
RegulatorDeutsche Bundesbank / BaFin
Leading payment methods
girocardCredit transfer / direct debitWallets (PayPal)Pay-by-invoice / BNPLCash
E-commerce shares
Wallets · 30%Account-to-account · 22%Cards · 21%Buy now, pay later · 20%Other · 5%Cash · 2%
girocard + credit transfer. The domestic debit scheme girocard (formerly EC-Karte, about 100 million cards) dominates at the point of sale, while e-commerce runs on credit transfers, direct debits, and purchase on invoice (Rechnungskauf), the legacy of a deep-seated wariness of consumer credit.
girocard transactions7.9B, €307B (2024, +5.6%)
Contactless girocard≈87% of payments (Dec. 2024)
In-store cash share≈50% of transactions (Bundesbank)
Europe’s most cash-loyal country (still about 50% of in-store transactions by volume) and a BNPL champion: Klarna generates a large share of its volume there. Wero e-commerce launched there first, at the end of 2025.
IBAN · Germany
22 charactersSEPA area3,503 bank codes8,518 BIC codes
- Total length
- 22 characters
- Bank code position
- 5–12
- BBAN structure
8!n10!n
Structurally valid example
DEcountry code89check digits37040044bank0532013000account
DE89 3704 0044 0532 0130 00
Learn about this market. The guides and courses that cover it.
Payments in GermanyMerchant, acquirer, PSPPayment regulationCentral banks and payment infrastructuresAgents, distributors, and banking-as-a-service: who is liable for whatPayments in the BalkansAccepting payments in Germany, Austria, and SwitzerlandAccepting payments in Spain and PortugalChoosing a jurisdiction for your payment institutionAccepting payments in the Netherlands and BelgiumAccepting payments in the NordicsAccepting payments in Poland and Central Europe
Card schemes
Instant payments
giropay (merger of paydirekt, giropay, and Kwitt)DiscontinuedA textbook failure of bank-owned pay-by-bank against PayPal. Its shutdown freed German banks to move to Wero, and every integrator should by now have removed it from checkout.Paydirekt GmbH (Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft) · since 200523 million transactions worth €1.6 billion in 2022, a single-digit market share; shutdown voted at a shareholder meeting on June 12, 2024, and completed at the end of 2024 (Börsen-Zeitung/IT-Finanzmagazin, 2024)
Sofortüberweisung / Klarna Pay NowPay-by-bank built on screen scraping and later on PSD2 APIs. For years it was the most widely used way to pay online by bank transfer in Germany, where it outlasted giropay; in Austria, it competed with eps-Überweisung, the Austrian banks’ own standard.Klarna Bank AB (The acquired entity was SOFORT AG, the operator of Sofortüberweisung. The deal closed on March 7, 2014, after being announced in late 2013. The German entity now operates as SOFORT GmbH.) · since 2005
Clearing and settlement
Elektronisches Lastschriftverfahren (ELV / SEPA-Lastschrift at the point of sale)Payment at checkout by signing a direct debit mandate, with no payment guarantee but no scheme fees either. This German specificity skews card market share comparisons.merchants and service providers, under a non-guaranteed procedure, outside the girocard scheme · since 1980
SEPA-Clearer (RPS)Bulk CSM operated by Germany’s central bank, a rare case in Europe where retail clearing remains in public hands.Deutsche Bundesbank · since 2008
Wallets
GeldKarteDiscontinuedGerman electronic purse on the girocard chip, used for vending machines and age checks at cigarette machines. Contactless has now killed it off for good.EURO Kartensysteme GmbH · since 1996Offer closed at the end of 2024, with balance refunds available until March 31, 2025; no new cards issued since 2020
GirogoDiscontinuedContactless version of the GeldKarte that never caught on; it shows how closed prepaid schemes lost out to contactless debit.Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft / EURO Kartensysteme · since 2012Dropped by the cooperative banks in 2017–2018
Buy now, pay later
BillieB2B BNPL (invoice payment between businesses), a segment separate from consumer BNPL and not subject to the same credit rules.Billie GmbH · since 2016
RatepayGerman specialist in invoice payment (Kauf auf Rechnung), an online payment method that is culturally dominant in Germany and absent elsewhere.Ratepay GmbH · since 2009
Riverty (formerly AfterPay / Arvato Financial Solutions)The benchmark invoice payment method in the Netherlands and Germany. Not to be confused with Australia’s Afterpay: the shared name causes integration errors.Riverty Group GmbH (Bertelsmann) · since 2022