Pedram Dadgar’s positions on payments, regulation and sales.
A capped CO₂ price, a green gas quota and rising gas grid charges all land in 2027, yet none of these decisions settles the financing.
“Berlin caps the CO₂ price as relief and in the same week turns two more cost screws on fossil heating — and nobody is responsible for financing the alternative.”
Mastercard will require offline payments from 2027. Tills only become outage-proof once power, connectivity and merchant contracts keep pace.
“An offline-capable chip is useless if the terminal hangs on a power cable. Resilience is built at the socket and in the contract, not in a card scheme’s press release.”
The German cabinet has adopted a cash register mandate from 2028, and the retail association HDE rejects it in its current form. Yet the mandate hits exactly the businesses that today enjoy a competitive edge over honest merchants thanks to the cash drawer, and the criticism should target the implementation rather than the mandate itself.
“The open cash drawer is not breathing room for small businesses but a competitive edge for those who don’t ring everything up. Whoever defends it is not defending the honest merchant.”
Germany is adding card payments faster than almost any other EU country, and yet nearly four in five large merchants report rising payment costs. Growth ought to push down the price per payment; instead, almost all of it ends up with the provider.
“When the number of card payments multiplies, the price per payment has to fall. Anything else is a fee increase nobody ever had to announce.”
Card schemes, acquirers and AI providers have presented credentials, protocols and interfaces for shopping agents within two weeks. The question of who pays the chargeback when an agent buys the wrong thing is expressly on the open list in every announcement.
“A verified agent is not an authorised purchase. As long as the rulebooks do not write down that difference, the retailer pays for it.”
In the second week of September the European Payments Initiative reported a new shareholder, a major bank as a distribution channel and ten million German users. A merchant fee appeared in none of these announcements.
“A payment method without published terms is not an offer but a declaration of intent — and declarations of intent do not belong in a contract running 48 months.”
For a year and a half, people have been marketing a law that does not exist. The real obligation comes from the customer, and the real danger for small businesses is not missing terminals but the contracts they sign out of fear.
“The only obligation that applies in payments in 2026 is the retailer's obligation to read his contract before he signs it.”