Weekly briefing Week 40: Europe builds the network, customers already pay by phone
Five stories of the week from 28 September to 2 October 2026, one thesis and one number. Three Wero stories show how far Europe’s payment network has come, the EHI report shows where customers already are today, and Shopify and Stripe pull checkout and credit deeper into their own platforms.
The five stories of the week
1. Apple Pay in almost every second top shop, Wero at 3 per cent. On 29 September EHI published its analysis of the 1,000 most important German online shops: 97.2 per cent offer a wallet, Apple Pay rose within one year from 37.8 to 49.0 per cent, Google Pay from 23.1 to 32.0 per cent. Wero is shown separately for the first time and stands at 3.0 per cent, while purchase on invoice remains standard at 81.7 per cent. That is no verdict on Wero, but a clear finding about where customers pay today. Read the analysis
2. Wero, Bizum and others found the European Network for Payments. On 30 September Bancomat, Bizum, EPI with Wero, SIBS with MB WAY and Vipps MobilePay founded a joint company based in Madrid; according to EPI they reach around 130 million users in 13 countries together. It starts with cross-border payments between private individuals, with e-commerce and the shop till to follow in later phases. Nobody names a date for merchants. Read the analysis
3. Luxembourg switches off Payconiq, Wero takes over. Since 30 September the Payconiq platform in the Grand Duchy has been closed; through five banks, payments in shops, in online shops and on invoices now run on Wero. According to EPI, old Payconiq QR codes can still be scanned with the Wero app until 31 December. It is the first Wero migration carried through to the end that a German merchant can study at leisure. Read the analysis
4. Shopify lets any browser agent complete the checkout. Since 28 September browser agents can use WebMCP to read the Shopify checkout, fill in fields and submit the order after the buyer confirms, automatically for all eligible merchants and without configuration. If the process requires 3-D Secure or a blocking extension, control goes back to the human. After last week’s Muse partnership, no partner contract is needed any more. Read the analysis
5. Stripe buys Parafin. Stripe is acquiring the provider of embedded credit for small businesses on platforms such as DoorDash, Amazon and Gusto; Parafin announced the acquisition on 30 September. By its own account Parafin has extended more than 3 billion US dollars to over 60,000 US businesses; the purchase price was not disclosed. One week after Adyen and Flatpay, it is the second large payment provider to tie merchant credit to its own settlement. Read the analysis
The thesis of the week
Rarely have ambition and reality in European payments sat as close together as this week. On 30 September five schemes found a network for 130 million people; on the same day Luxembourg switches off Payconiq and shows what a Wero migration with a cut-off date looks like. And the day before, EHI measures that Wero has arrived in 3 per cent of top shops, Apple Pay in 49 per cent. One does not rule out the other. But it sets the order: the European network starts with payments between private individuals, while the customer at the till pays today with whatever is already set up on their phone. Anyone planning their checkout now is planning for that customer, not for the press release.
The second line of the week is the same as last week, just one level deeper: platforms are pulling more and more of the payment process onto their own rail. Shopify opens its checkout to every agent but keeps exactly the step with the human on which liability depends, strong customer authentication. Stripe buys the credit that is repaid out of ongoing revenue. Both are convenient, and both make switching more expensive. A merchant loan via settlement is not a bad product, but whoever takes it has to pay it off before the next change of provider.
Then there are the costs in the background. According to provisional data from the Federal Statistical Office, inflation rose to 3.3 per cent in September, energy to plus 14.9 per cent, and every price increase makes percentage card fees grow with it. On 1 October the Federal Court of Justice struck down Amazon’s Prime price clause because customers could not tell how to fend off the increase — a warning to anyone who sells recurring payments. The sum of the week: new networks, new agents and new credit arrive faster than any review of terms. Merchants who do not know their payment costs in euros, their contractual lock-in and the order of their payment methods leave those decisions to the platforms.
The number of the week
49.0 versus 3.0 per cent. In 49.0 per cent of the 1,000 most important German online shops customers can pay with Apple Pay, up from 37.8 per cent a year earlier; Wero is shown for the first time and is available in 3.0 per cent (EHI Retail Institute, E-Commerce-Report Deutschland 2026, published on 29 September 2026). What is measured is the visible offer from the customer’s perspective, not the share of revenue. Even so, the gap describes exactly how far the European scheme still has to go before it plays a role in the German checkout.
Looking ahead to next week
On 4 October the Oktoberfest ends; a follow-up analysis by Visa is likely, following last year’s pattern, but would be provider data only. On 6 October at 15:00 CET the ECB briefs merchants on the pilot phase of the digital euro — fitting the new round of its innovation platform, for which merchants can apply until 9 November. Next Generation Payment takes place in Cologne on 7 and 8 October, and on 9 October the obligation to send instant transfers, including verification of payee, will have applied in the euro area for one year.
Still open: a published outcome of the trilogue on the digital euro, the Bundesrat session on 16 October with a possible first reading of the Second Cash Register Act, the final September inflation rate on 13 October, Adyen’s quarterly update on 28 October with the question of how existing Flatpay customers will be migrated, and the new consumer credit law from 20 November, which for the first time fully covers instalment purchases and BNPL.