Bundeskartellamt has no objection to paydirekt's new payment function

On the basis of the knowledge available the Bundeskartellamt has no objection under competition law aspects to the planned addition of a new payment function to the online payment system 'paydirekt', which will allow customers in future to transfer small amounts of money from one mobile to another (so-called "P2P payment function").

paydirekt is a joint venture of leading private banks, German cooperative banks (Volks- und Raiffeisenbanken) and undertakings from the savings bank sector. The banks participating in the joint venture have jointly developed this payment system but compete with one other in other areas. The Bundeskartellamt has therefore examined the project.

Andreas Mundt, President of Bundeskartellamt: "We have no objections to this cooperation between a substantial number of banks in Germany in the area of mobile payment systems. The new cooperation improves the competitive conditions on the market for online payment systems. With the implementation of this project paydirekt can add a mobile function to its online payment system which the market leader Paypal and many other competitors have already offered for some time." 

paydirekt is a joint venture of a large number of banks in Germany and is active in the German market for online payment systems.  Up to now paydirekt has not been able to establish a strong position in the market. The new payment function adds an uncomplicated solution for mobile payments for private transactions to the existing payment system. In future customers will be able to use their paydirekt app to directly transfer money to a contact stored in their smartphone address book without having to enter an IBAN or TAN number.

The leading online payment service provider Paypal has long equipped its own app with a similar P2P function. Other providers of similar payment systems include FinTechs such as Lendstar, Cringle or Tabbt and also the savings bank group ("Kwitt") and the cooperative banks ("Geld senden und empfangen"/"send and receive money"). 

The parties informed the Bundeskartellamt in detail about the new project in November 2016. An examination of the project left unanswered whether there is a separate market for this kind of free P2P transactions on which competition could possibly be hindered by the cooperation or whether the payment function is one of several individual offers available in online banking. 

Against this background the Bundeskartellamt informed the parties that based on the knowledge currently available it would not take up the project.