The Bundeskartellamt has no objections to the first stage of implementation of Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft’s (German Banking Industry Committee) “Xpay” or “#DK” project to set up a uniform payment system for all payment channels.

In a first step the current e-commerce payment methods paydirekt and giropay as well as the customer to customer payment system Kwitt are to be merged into a joint payment brand. The Bundeskartellamt has now notified the parties concerned that it has no objections to this combination of payment systems.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “We offer constructive guidance with Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft’s initiative to set up a uniform payment system. In an important and highly contested market with strong competitors like Paypal, Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft is to offer consumers a prospectively improved product to cover all payment methods, irrespective of the bank with which the account is held. In spite of the project’s possible benefits for consumers, it is absolutely necessary to assess it under competition law as it involves a cooperation between the large majority of banks and savings banks in Germany. We have no competition concerns about the first implementation stage to combine the existing services paydirekt, giropay and Kwitt in future. This gives the parties the necessary legal security to quickly push ahead with the project. As regards the overall project, the banks will still have to provide more concrete details about their plans in order to clarify further questions”.

The four banking associations Bundesverband deutscher Banken, Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken, Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband and Bundesverband Öffentlicher Banken are working together with Commerzbank AG, DZ Bank AG and Deutsche Bank AG to standardise the digital payment systems of Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft. The aim is to offer a standard product to cover the various payment channels in brick-and-mortar retail (point of sale), online sales (e-commerce) and payments between private persons via apps (P2P payments). This project is already known to the general public as “#DK” or “Xpay” and is to be implemented in partial stages.

A number of further questions beyond the first stage, i.e. the combination of the e-commerce payment models paydirekt, giropay and Kwitt are still unanswered. For example, the exact way in which the online payment systems are to be combined with the payment system used in offline retail, details about the framework conditions for the cooperation under corporate law, the structure of price negotiations or general terms and conditions on the use of the system are still unclear.

Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft will inform the Bundeskartellamt about further steps so that these can also be quickly assessed by the authority.