HDE against mandatory card acceptance: no need for it — but please allow surcharging

What happened

On 16 September 2026, the Handelsverband Deutschland (German Retail Federation) formally commented for the first time on the key points paper from the Bundesfinanzministerium (Federal Ministry of Finance) and rejected a statutory acceptance obligation for digital means of payment. HDE expert Ulrich Binnebößel bases this on the claim that “at retail checkouts, 99 per cent of the time both have long been possible anyway” — cash and card; the figure comes from the association, it is not a surveyed statistic. An obligation would therefore mainly create additional red tape. The HDE also warns that a generally worded acceptance obligation would create the expectation among customers that virtually every widely used card is accepted, thereby strengthening the international card schemes. If the legislator rejects that argument, the association demands surcharging in return, that is, the right to pass card fees on to customers. The status of the project itself is unchanged: the key points have been known since 11 September via dpa, they are in interdepartmental coordination, and to this day there is no press release from the ministry itself.

Who is affected

Retail, hospitality, trades and service providers with small average basket sizes — and every merchant who today only accepts girocard and tomorrow will have to explain why the customer's credit card does not go through.

Assessment

The real conflict is not in the first paragraph of the HDE statement, it is in the second to last. Whether 99 per cent of checkouts can already do both is a side theatre — anyone who sees applications as a payment network operator knows that the pressure to upgrade has long come from the market, not from Berlin. The point where it really hurts is the question: mandatory acceptance of what exactly? “A commonly used payment method” sounds harmless in a key points paper. In practice, that half-sentence decides whether a baker gets by with girocard or whether he ends up having to carry debit and credit cards from international schemes at considerably different fees, because otherwise the customer is standing at the till unable to pay.

On surcharging I disagree with the HDE, and I do so in merchants' interest. Section 270a of the German Civil Code (BGB) prohibits surcharges precisely where interchange is capped — on consumer debit and credit cards from the EEA. Opening up that barrier would not lower costs, it would shift the price fight to the till, where it gets fought out between the cashier and the customer. Anyone who wants to push costs down has to go where they arise: to the building blocks of their own statement and to the fees for cards that do not fall under the cap — commercial cards and non-EEA cards. And if the legislator is going to regulate anyway, exactly that sentence belongs in the bill: which payment methods satisfy the obligation. Anything else is a blank cheque for the very schemes the HDE rightly fears.

What to do now

1. Break down your own statement by card type: share of girocard, EEA consumer cards, commercial cards, non-EEA cards. That is the figure that will decide your additional costs if an obligation comes.
2. Get your payment network operator to confirm in writing which payment methods can be switched on under your existing contract without a price change — before a statutory obligation tips the negotiating position.
3. Follow the association debate, but do not wait for it: until the cabinet decision you negotiate as a voluntary customer, afterwards as an obliged one.