The plans for the digital Girocard are slowly becoming concrete. With this innovation, Germany’s banks and savings banks want to clearly standardize online payment processes for customers.
Until now, it was not – or only in a few cases – possible to pay online with the Girocard (formerly EC card). That is why many use services such as PayPal or Klarna for digital payment transactions instead. The German banks and savings banks want to change that and offer an alternative with the digital Girocard
Digital Girocard should come later this year
The plans for the new payment method have been official for a year now, and now there is very concrete information. “The contractual and technical foundations for the integration of the digital giro card are currently being created. The integration of the Girocard as a further access route in the online payment method Giropay should start in the second half of the year,” said the German banking industry when asked by the dpa.
As a result, the new function should then be the first to be available to customers of the cooperative financial group. These include around 800 Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks as well as the Schwäbisch Hall building society. By the end of the year, however, it is also planned to provide the first savings bank customers with the digital Girocard; other institutes are to follow. The completion of the integration in the online trade itself is expected for the end of 2022.
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Alternative to PayPal and other online services?
The aim of the new function should be to offer users a bundled service for online payment transactions, regardless of which financial institution they are a customer of. For this purpose, the services Giropay, Paydirekt and Kwitt were combined under the name Giropay last year.
The new function of the digital Girocard is initially a purely national service that is a joint project of cooperative, public and private institutions. Overall, according to Paydirekt, almost the entire German banking industry is involved. Under the motto of uniformity, the function in this country is designed as a real alternative to established services such as PayPal, Klarna and Apple Pay. According to the industry associations, independence from international companies also plays a role.
But there is still a long way to go until then. In Germany alone, the number of PayPal users is over 29 million. According to current information, only 7.5 million use the new Giropay process. In the medium term, however, the market share is to be increased to 50 percent. TECHBOOK informs you about further developments.