Can a PISP licensed in another EU country initiate payments in Germany?

Yes. PSD2 lets a payment institution authorised in one EU or EEA member state provide payment initiation services in another through passporting: you notify your home regulator, which informs BaFin. You do not need a second licence in Germany, and your eIDAS certificates are valid across the EU whichever member state issued them.

Which Open Banking API standard do German banks use?

German banks implement Berlin Group NextGenPSD2 almost without exception. The differences are in the detail: which strong customer authentication approaches a bank offers, which optional fields it requires, and how far it reports payment status after the customer approves.

How are the savings banks and cooperative banks reached?

Most German savings banks and cooperative banks expose their PSD2 interfaces through shared banking IT providers rather than individually. Each provider behaves as one technical platform serving many institutions, which is why monitoring per connection matters: a provider-side change affects every bank behind it at once.

Coverage · Germany

Open Banking payment initiation in Germany

MVP Payments has live, direct connections to German banks. Bring your own PISP licence and initiate payments in Germany through one API — with every connection monitored around the clock.

Status: Live
Currency: Euro (EUR)
Payment rail: SEPA Instant Credit Transfer
Interface standard: Berlin Group NextGenPSD2
Regulator: Bundesanstalt für Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin)
Payment services law: Zahlungsdiensteaufsichtsgesetz (ZAG)

Talk to us How bring-your-own-licence works

How Open Banking payments work in Germany

Germany is the home market of Berlin Group NextGenPSD2, and practically every German bank implements it. The challenge is the shape of the market rather than the standard: alongside the private and direct banks sit several hundred savings banks and several hundred cooperative banks, most of them reached through a small number of shared banking IT providers.

That structure cuts both ways for a PISP. One well-maintained connection can reach a very large number of institutions, and one change by a shared provider can affect all of them on the same day. German banks also vary in the strong customer authentication approaches they offer — redirect, decoupled approval in the banking app, or embedded — so the customer journey has to adapt by bank.

German consumers have long been comfortable paying from their bank account, which makes payment initiation a natural fit for checkout, invoicing and account top-ups. Payments settle as SEPA Instant Credit Transfers, mandatory for euro-area banks to send since October 2025.

What you bring

Authorisation as a payment institution with payment initiation permission — from BaFin, or from another EU or EEA regulator with a passport notification into Germany
eIDAS certificates issued to your firm by a qualified trust service provider — a QWAC to identify you to each bank and a QSealC to sign requests, both carrying the payment initiation role
Your merchants, your contracts and your compliance framework — the payments run under your licence

What MVP Payments runs

The German bank connections

Built and maintained bank by bank, direct to the bank's own interface or the hub it uses — and identified to each bank by your certificates, not ours.

Monitoring, around the clock

Health re-evaluated every five minutes, a dedicated AI agent per bank, and engineers who release the fix. How monitoring works.

The payment journey

One API, a hosted payment page in 20 languages and your merchants' branding, and signed webhooks at every final status. Explore the platform.

Payment initiation in Germany: common questions

Can a PISP licensed in another EU country initiate payments in Germany?: Yes. PSD2 lets a payment institution authorised in one EU or EEA member state provide payment initiation services in another through passporting: you notify your home regulator, which informs BaFin. You do not need a second licence in Germany, and your eIDAS certificates are valid across the EU whichever member state issued them.
Which Open Banking API standard do German banks use?: German banks implement Berlin Group NextGenPSD2 almost without exception. The differences are in the detail: which strong customer authentication approaches a bank offers, which optional fields it requires, and how far it reports payment status after the customer approves.
How are the savings banks and cooperative banks reached?: Most German savings banks and cooperative banks expose their PSD2 interfaces through shared banking IT providers rather than individually. Each provider behaves as one technical platform serving many institutions, which is why monitoring per connection matters: a provider-side change affects every bank behind it at once.