Weekly briefing Week 36: card schemes grow, girocard stagnates, and the obligation remains a rumour
Five stories of the week from 31 August to 4 September 2026, one thesis and one number. For everyone who wants to be up to speed on payments and sales in five minutes.
The five stories of the week
1. Visa and Mastercard are growing in Europe twice as fast as retail. Nine per cent more volume in the second quarter, while girocard turnover grows by 0.8 per cent. The shift from girocard to Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit is invisible to the customer and a cost question for the merchant. Read the analysis
2. Scheme fees under supervision. The British regulator has found that Visa's and Mastercard's core fees have risen by at least 25 per cent since 2017, and is now demanding auditable records for every pricing decision. The EU Commission has been investigating since 2024; nothing has been decided. Read the analysis
3. Mollie grows by 23 per cent and acquires GoCardless. The Amsterdam payment service provider is buying direct debit in-house for 1.1 billion euros. The right direction for subscription models, and for merchants a trade of fees against chargeback risk. Read the analysis
4. 70 per cent of sales time is not selling time. Salesforce quantifies the share of administration in sales, and half of German companies cannot find sales staff. The two are connected. Read the analysis
5. Mandatory card acceptance: still no law. As of 5 September there is no draft and no date, only the intention in the coalition agreement. Terminal sales teams advertise with it regardless. Read the analysis
The thesis of the week
German merchants are currently losing on two fronts without noticing. On one side, their card mix is shifting from the cheap girocard to the more expensive debit cards of the international schemes, because that is how banks equip new customers. On the other, the scheme fees of those systems are rising, with no law capping them and no merchant able to negotiate them. Both disappear into flat-rate tariffs. Anyone who wants to keep their costs under control needs a statement that separates interchange, scheme fee and margin. The right to one has existed since 2015. Almost nobody uses it.
The number of the week
9 per cent against 0.8 per cent. Visa's and Mastercard's volume growth in Europe against girocard's turnover growth in Germany over the same period.
Looking ahead to next week
Formal adoption of PSD3 and PSR is expected between summer and autumn; the anniversary of the instant payments obligation on 9 October is approaching; at the end of September the first providers will report on the terminal set-up for the Christmas trading season.