PayPal+ launches in Germany: points for the most expensive payment method at checkout

What happened

PayPal has launched its own loyalty programme in Germany. Trade media reported consistently on the company’s announcement on 17 September 2026; the rollout will be phased in over several months. The mechanics: after a one-off registration in the PayPal app, eligible online purchases earn one point per five euros of purchase value, and 1,000 points are worth ten euros. In bricks-and-mortar retail, points are only collected by those who pay with the PayPal Card or with PayPal Ratenzahlung To Go, and there the cap is 1,000 points per month. There are two free tiers, Blue and Gold; Gold starts at 4,000 points and lifts the point value in the online checkout by 20 per cent, so 100 points are then worth 1.20 euros instead of one euro. PayPal names no registration or monthly fees. What this costs on the merchant side appears in none of the reports.

Who it affects

Online merchants that offer PayPal at checkout — and bricks-and-mortar merchants whose tills will in future see a card that earns the customer points.

Assessment

At this point a loyalty programme is not a marketing campaign, it is a lever on payment method choice. And payment method choice is the most expensive adjusting screw a shop has in German e-commerce. The EHI study Online-Payment 2026 measured, across 172 surveyed merchants, where the money goes: PayPal leads with a 28.7 per cent share of revenue, ahead of purchase on invoice with 26.1 per cent and direct debit with 14.4 per cent. On costs the order reverses — PayPal comes in at an average of 1.94 per cent of revenue, direct debit at 0.65 per cent. Every percentage point shifted from the cheap to the convenient payment method is, on 100,000 euros of online revenue, around 1,300 euros a year that nobody finds in the accounts as a marketing expense.

I find the second part more interesting, and almost nobody commented on it: in-store, points only come with the PayPal Card or Ratenzahlung To Go. With that, an online provider is building a reward for paying around girocard at the shop till — and the cap of 1,000 points per month shows that PayPal itself knows what that costs. Merchants should see this soberly: customer loyalty run by somebody else does not tie the customer to the shop, it ties them to the payment method. Anyone handing out their own points should attach them to the receipt, not to the payment procedure.

What to do now

1. Break down your own checkout statistics for the last twelve months by payment method and multiply them by the respective fees. Only that figure makes shifts visible.
2. Keep cheap payment methods visible and pre-selected at checkout instead of hiding them behind selection menus — order of presentation is the most effective steering a shop has in its own hands.
3. In the bricks-and-mortar business, watch the card mix: if the share of internationally issued debit cards grows noticeably, the terminal statement belongs under review.