Weekly briefing Week 38: the associations argue about whether, the customer decided long ago
Five stories of the week from 14 to 18 September 2026, one thesis and one number. Retail rejects mandatory card acceptance, while a fresh survey shows that customers have long taken it for granted at the till — and two European deadlines start running.
The five stories of the week
1. The HDE rejects mandatory card acceptance — and in the same breath demands surcharging. On 16 September the German Retail Federation became the first major association to comment formally on the key points from the Federal Ministry of Finance: no need, because according to the association retail tills already offer both in 99 per cent of cases anyway. At the same time the HDE warns that a generally worded acceptance obligation would create the expectation that every widely used card is accepted, thereby strengthening the international card schemes. If the obligation comes anyway, the association wants to be allowed to pass card fees on to customers — an intervention in § 270a BGB (German Civil Code). Read the analysis
2. 72 per cent expect to pay by card in a restaurant. On 17 September dpa distributed the results of a YouGov survey of 14 September with more than 3,600 respondents. Restaurants come in at 72 per cent, up from 67 per cent the year before, supermarkets at 71 up from 66. The biggest jumps are where the minimum-spend sign still hangs most often today: ice cream parlours from 41 to 50 per cent, snack bars from 40 to 48, kiosks from 36 to 45. In every situation surveyed the figure is above the previous year's. Read the analysis
3. The ECB is looking for online merchants for the digital euro pilot. On 15 September the Eurosystem opened its call for expressions of interest from e-commerce and m-commerce merchants. The pilot starts in the second half of 2027 and runs for twelve months; participation is voluntary and unpaid, and requires an agreement with the ECB and a contract with one of the 36 selected payment service providers. The information event is on 6 October at 15:00 CET, with applications closing on 27 October at 17:00 CET. This call is explicitly not intended for in-store merchants. Read the analysis
4. The EU customs reform is adopted, and the handling fee arrives by 1 November at the latest. On 16 September the European Parliament gave final approval to the reformed Union Customs Code, the Council having already agreed. For every item going directly from a non-EU web shop to EU consumers, member states will in future levy a handling fee; its level is set by the Commission and reviewed every two years. Platforms and sellers from third countries count as importers themselves and are liable for data, duties and product conformity; repeated breaches carry fines of at least 1 and up to 6 per cent of the import value of the past twelve months. Read the analysis
5. PayPal launches its loyalty programme in Germany. On 17 September trade services reported the launch of PayPal+: one point per five euros of purchase value, 1,000 points worth ten euros, rolled out in stages over several months. In store, points are only earned by paying with the PayPal Card or with Ratenzahlung To Go, capped there at 1,000 points a month; the Gold tier from 4,000 points raises the point value in the online checkout by 20 per cent. What this costs on the merchant side appears in none of the reports. Read the analysis
The thesis of the week
This week retail fought the wrong battle. The HDE and, three days earlier, the European Association of the Self-Employed argued against mandatory card acceptance, both with the same logic: it already works everywhere, so no law is needed. The argument is not wrong, it simply misses the point. If 99 per cent of tills really can already do both, the obligation costs those 99 per cent nothing — it costs the businesses that have not done the maths to this day. And that is exactly where the gap sits that the YouGov figures make visible: not in organised retail but at the kiosk, in the ice cream parlour, at the snack bar, where expectation has risen by eight to nine points year on year and the average ticket is a few euros. For these businesses this is not a question of attitude but an arithmetic problem: anyone paying a fixed fee per transaction on an 8-euro ticket loses a noticeable part of their contribution margin on every card payment. That is the real reason for the minimum-spend sign — and also the reason why the HDE ends up at price and demands surcharging.
That this is the wrong lever is shown by the very provision the association wants to open up: § 270a BGB blocks surcharges precisely where interchange is capped, that is on EEA consumer cards. How little a cap alone achieves was written this week in 978 signatures from the United States: there, interchange is to fall by a tenth of a percentage point under the proposed settlement; here it has been capped by regulation since 2015 — and card costs are rising all the same. Anyone who wants to move something on price has to go at the building blocks of their own statement and at the cards outside the cap, not at the till and certainly not at the customer.
The second thread of the week is the same thought from the other side: someone is already steering payment method choice — just not the merchant. PayPal+ attaches points to the payment method that on average costs the merchant the most; the EHI survey on online payments 2026 puts average merchant costs for PayPal at 1.94 per cent and for direct debit at 0.65 per cent. A loyalty programme is not a gift to customers, it is a shift into the merchant's margin. And while one part of retail argues about whether, two European clocks are running: the digital euro, where the pilot determines what the payment journey will later look like, and the customs reform, which cancels the regulatory advantage from the Far East. Both deadlines are invitations to help write the rules rather than pay for them later. The sum of the week: whoever does not steer their payment methods and their costs themselves will have them steered by someone else — by law, by loyalty programme, or by the customer who walks on to the next door.
The number of the week
72 per cent, up from 67 per cent the year before. That is how many respondents think it must be possible to pay cashlessly in a restaurant — YouGov survey of 14 September 2026 among more than 3,600 adults in Germany, distributed by dpa on 17 September; the comparison survey of 16 March 2025 covered 1,259 people, and no commissioning party is named in the report. In every situation surveyed the figure is above the previous year's.
Looking ahead to next week
There is no fixed date in the coming week, but four threads continue. On mandatory card acceptance, DEHOGA and ZDH are still missing in their own words — the quotes in circulation come from dpa reports, not from their own statements — as are publication of the key points or of a ministerial draft, a cabinet date, the definition of hardship and, above all, the answer to the question of which schemes actually satisfy the obligation. On the customs reform, the next real news hook is the Commission's implementing act setting the level of the handling fee. For PayPal+ it would be terms or named merchant campaigns — or a competing programme from Klarna, Wero or girocard with the same mechanics. And on the digital euro it remains open whether the Bundesbank will launch its own call for in-store merchants.
Further ahead: Sibos from 28 September to 1 October in Miami Beach under the motto “Digital finance for AI-driven economies”, the non-monetary-policy meeting of the ECB Governing Council on 30 September, the ECB's information event on the merchant pilot on 6 October at 15:00 CET, Next Generation Payment on 7 and 8 October in Cologne, one year of the obligation to send instant payments including verification of payee on 9 October, the application deadline for the pilot on 27 October and the ibi payments forum on 28 and 29 October in Frankfurt.