Payments in Germany

A German bank moves most payments through the same rails as any other bank in the euro area: SEPA credit transfers, direct debits and card schemes. What differs by provider is the license behind it. A payment institution under the Zahlungsdiensteaufsichtsgesetz (ZAG), the law that carries the EU's Payment Services Directive into German law, needs written authorization from BaFin under section 10 before it can offer payment services. The Deutsche Bundesbank supports BaFin in overseeing these firms and their capital and safeguarding rules.

Payment and e-money institutions also carry duties from the EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which applies to them directly since January 17, 2025. A payments startup that signs a contract with a bank customer now answers for its own ICT risk management and incident reporting to BaFin, on top of the ZAG license.

The EU is replacing the second Payment Services Directive with a package of two texts: a new Payment Services Directive (PSD3) and, for the first time, a directly applicable Payment Services Regulation (PSR) that needs no national transposition law like the ZAG. Negotiators reached provisional agreement on the package on November 27, 2025, and the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer expects the rules to apply from mid to late 2027.

The new rules bring an IBAN name check before a transfer goes out, a clearer split of liability for authorized push payment fraud, and stricter requirements on how payment and e-money institutions keep customer funds safe. BaFin has said in guidance covered by Freshfields that it expects new authorization files from 2026 onward to already reflect the direction of PSD3, so a payments company applying for a German license today plans for both rulebooks.

Since Regulation (EU) 2024/886 took effect, every German payment service provider that offers SEPA credit transfers must also offer instant credit transfers, credited to the payee within ten seconds at any hour. The German name is Echtzeitüberweisung, and it has moved from a paid extra to the default way many people send money.

Wero, the wallet of the bank-owned European Payments Initiative, runs on this instant-payment rail in Germany, Belgium, France and Luxembourg and lets a user pay with only a phone number. On the crypto side, AllUnity, a Frankfurt venture set up by DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy, launched EURAU in 2025 as the first fully reserved, MiCA-compliant euro stablecoin issued under a BaFin e-money license. Deutsche Bank has said EURAU is one of the stablecoins on its list for institutional custody clients. A treasury team choosing between a euro stablecoin and a bank instant transfer now weighs both under the same MiCA and DORA rules.

Open banking in Germany runs on the account access rights the second Payment Services Directive gave to licensed account information and payment initiation providers. The EU's next step is the Financial Data Access Regulation (FIDA), which would extend that access beyond payment accounts to savings, investment, pension and insurance data, organized through industry-run data sharing schemes. As of 2026 FIDA is still in trilogue negotiation between Parliament, Council and Commission, with obligations expected to phase in from 2027, so a German bank's open finance roadmap still targets a moving deadline.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for people who build and supervise payments in Germany: banks, payment institutions, card networks and the fintechs around them. It connects the finance, IT and AI communities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with events in Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg.

Finance Loop is a strategic partner of the Digital Euro Association, the Frankfurt think tank behind the Digital Euro Conference, where speakers from central banks, commercial banks and fintechs cover the digital euro and stablecoins. Finance Loop supported the Bybit EU x Circle Roadshow in Frankfurt, with panels on stablecoins, USDC and EURC, and When Banks Say 'No', a payments seminar for compliance, treasury and legal teams. Related pages: payments in Frankfurt, stablecoins in Germany and open banking in Germany.

Yes. Section 10 of the Zahlungsdiensteaufsichtsgesetz requires written BaFin authorization before a firm offers payment services in Germany, unless it operates under a license from another EU member state passported into Germany. The license comes with capital, safeguarding and, since 2025, DORA duties.

PSD3 and the Payment Services Regulation add an IBAN name check before a transfer is confirmed, tighten how liability for authorized push payment fraud is shared, and set stricter rules on safeguarding customer funds. The package reached provisional political agreement in November 2025, and firms expect it to apply from 2027, with BaFin already asking new applicants to build toward it.

Yes. AllUnity, a Frankfurt company founded by DWS, Flow Traders and Galaxy, issues EURAU under a BaFin e-money institution license, fully backed by euro reserves. It launched in 2025 as Germany's first stablecoin built to MiCA's e-money token rules.

Payments jobs in Germany sit at banks, card schemes, payment institutions and the fintechs that build checkout, banking-as-a-service and embedded finance products around them. Frankfurt has the largest concentration because of its banks and the ECB, but Berlin and Hamburg have payments fintechs of their own. Finance Loop events and the calendar on this page list where the field meets in person.