Payments in Berlin

A payment company in Berlin answers to the same license as one in Frankfurt or Munich. Section 10 of the Zahlungsdiensteaufsichtsgesetz requires written BaFin authorization before a firm offers payment services from Germany, and BaFin has no branch office in Berlin: applications and supervision run out of Bonn and Frankfurt. A banking-as-a-service platform such as Solaris holds a full banking license, not the lighter payment institution license, since it issues accounts and cards for its business clients directly. Since January 2025, payment and e-money institutions also carry direct duties under the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act for their IT risk management, a requirement that applies to a Berlin startup the same way it applies to a Frankfurt bank.

Since Regulation (EU) 2024/886 took effect, a German payment provider that offers SEPA credit transfers must also offer an instant version, credited within ten seconds. Wero, the wallet built by the bank-owned European Payments Initiative, runs on this instant rail and already counts more than 43 million registered users across Belgium, France and Germany. Berlin's neobanks and payment apps compete for the same checkout moment Wero targets, which puts pressure on a Berlin fintech to support instant transfers and wallet-based payment next to card schemes, not card payment alone.

Berlin's e-commerce roots show up in its payment infrastructure companies as much as in its banks. A merchant processing card payments in Berlin typically works with an acquirer or a payment orchestration layer that routes transactions across several providers to cut cost and failure rates, a model several Berlin startups built their business around after cutting their teeth on the city's online retail scene. Cross-border payment companies based in Berlin serve merchants who sell into other EU markets from a single German entity, relying on the same SEPA and instant-payment rails available to any bank in the country. A payment orchestration platform also runs fraud screening on every transaction it routes, and BaFin expects the same anti-money-laundering controls from a Berlin startup that it expects from a bank. See payments in Germany for how the license and rulebook behind these services work nationwide.

Finance Loop started in Frankfurt and holds events in Berlin as well, where it is the meeting place for people who build and supervise payments: engineers and compliance staff from the city's banking-as-a-service platforms and neobanks, alongside bankers and IT people from the wider finance sector. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Finance Loop is a strategic partner of the Digital Euro Association, the Frankfurt think tank behind the Digital Euro Conference, where speakers from banks, central banks and payment fintechs cover instant payments and the digital euro. Related pages: payments in Germany, payments in Frankfurt, fintech in Berlin and payments in Europe.

Yes. Section 10 of the Zahlungsdiensteaufsichtsgesetz requires BaFin authorization before any firm offers payment services from Germany, and Berlin has no separate rule or exemption. A company that issues its own accounts and cards, such as Solaris, needs a full banking license, not the lighter payment institution license.