tgPAY from Transgourmet and VR Payment: card acceptance for hospitality businesses
tgPAY: since 1 September 2026 the foodservice wholesaler Transgourmet has been selling its own card acceptance for hospitality, hotels and catering together with VR Payment. The announcement names no terms and conditions, but it does offer a savings calculator.
What happened
The food wholesaler Transgourmet and VR Payment, the payment service provider of the cooperative financial group within the DZ BANK network, launched their joint payment solution tgPAY on 1 September 2026. The target group is out-of-home catering businesses: hospitality, hotels and canteen catering. tgPAY accepts the common cards as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay, comes with digital receipt management, free-of-charge reporting and an integrated tipping function; a connection to an existing till system is possible. The announcements name no concrete fee rates. Transgourmet speaks of very attractive and transparent terms, particularly for credit cards, and points to a savings calculator in its own service portal. The solution is available immediately.
Who it affects
Publicans, hoteliers and canteen operators who order goods from Transgourmet anyway. Existing payment network operators (Netzbetreiber) and acquirers whose contracts sit in precisely those businesses. And every restaurateur who has so far settled tips in cash.
Assessment
A wholesaler selling payment alongside its goods is not a footnote, it is the sales trend of the industry. Access to the business is the most expensive asset in the payment business, and whoever delivers twice a week anyway has it for free. For the publican that is convenient — and for exactly that reason dangerous if they do not compare. Convenience has never been a price argument.
What is missing from the announcement is the decisive part: no merchant discount rates, no terminal rental, no contract term, no information on the notice period. A savings calculator on the provider's own site is no substitute for a proposal. I consider the combination of tipping function and till integration to be professionally well built; those are the two points at which hospitality terminals fail in everyday use. But you can only assess an offer once the figures are on the table, and they appear in none of the reports.
What to do now
- Request a written offer with all line items: merchant discount rate per card type, per-transaction fee, terminal rental, service flat rate, contract term, notice period.
- Put your own most recent statement next to it and calculate with your actual card mix, not with the average from the calculator.
- Before signing, check whether the till integration leaves the existing TSE setup untouched — changing a terminal is no reason to touch the till.