Europe’s payment landscape is as dynamic as its cultural diversity. While cards may lead the way in many markets, payment preferences shift dramatically from one country to another, reflecting local traditions and consumer behavior.
From digital wallets to instant bank transfers, Europeans rely on various payment methods that cater to their unique needs when buying goods and services online. For merchants, this diversity represents both a challenge and an opportunity, as accommodating these preferences is critical to driving conversions and fostering customer loyalty.
In this article, we’ll explore the most popular European payment methods and highlight how merchants can adapt to meet regional preferences, boosting customer satisfaction and enabling scalable growth.
In this article:
- What are alternative payment methods
- The evolution of European alternative payment methods
- Online payment methods across Europe
- Why should businesses offer alternative payment methods in Europe?
- How Primer helps businesses unlock new payment methods in Europe
- How Ferryhopper used Primer to easily add alternative payment methods across Europe
Primer gives you access to Europe’s most popular payment methods through one integration. Book a call with our experts to find out how we can help.
What are alternative payment methods?
Alternative payment methods are means of paying for goods or services other than a traditional credit or debit card or cash payment.
Here are a few of the most common European alternative payment methods:
- Mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay
- Digital wallets like PayPal
- Direct bank transfers such as Giropay and iDEAL
- Buy Now Pay Later services like Klarna and Clearpay
- Local card schemes like Cartes Bancaires and Bancontact
The evolution of payment methods in Europe
Europe’s payment systems have changed a lot over the years. The rise of new financial technologies (fintech) has brought in fresh ways to pay, like Klarna. At the same time, new rules, like PSD2, have helped introduce Open Banking payments across Europe.
These changes have gone hand-in-hand with the rapid growth of online shopping, making Europe a key player in the digital economy. Today, people in Europe can choose from many payment methods, like digital wallets, payment cards, mobile wallets, and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services.
A recent survey of European consumers highlights this diversity: 44% prefer digital wallets for online payments, with cards close behind at 42%.
However, adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to payments across Europe would be unwise. As we'll explore in the following section, Europe's payment landscape is highly fragmented, requiring merchants to take a localized approach to cater to differing consumer payment preferences.
Online payment methods across Europe
Europe boasts a rich tapestry of payment methods, each influenced by localized preferences that hold sway in the region. While the Euro unites many countries economically, the region’s payment preferences remain highly distinct, reflecting cultural and behavioral differences.
Let’s look at some of the most popular payment methods across different European markets.
Payment methods in France
France is the home of an enormous ecommerce market. It's also home to one of Europe’s most popular local card schemes, Cartes Bancaires (CB). These cards often co-brand with Visa and Mastercard. Studies indicate that nearly 60% of shoppers in France favor paying with credit or debit cards.
Beyond card payments, the same survey highlights the growing prominence of digital wallets like PayPal, accounting for 32% of online purchases. Mobile wallet usage is on the rise. Experts project that BNPL payments will experience substantial growth, with an annual increase of 57% in the coming years.
These stats underscore how France's payment landscape is evolving to accommodate a broader spectrum of preferences and methods.
Payment methods in Germany
Just a short trip across the border to Germany reveals one of Europe's most diverse payment landscapes. German consumers lean towards SEPA direct debit, Klarna’s PayNow service, and Giropay, which collectively dominate the online payment scene.
A standout feature of the German market is the strong consumer preference for open invoice payments—a method reminiscent of B2B transactions. Here, customers receive their goods and settle payments afterward—an approach particularly popular in the online fashion sector.
Meanwhile, PayPal and BNPL serve as other popular payment options. BNPL’s rapid growth is unsurprising, considering it essentially offers an alternative to the open invoice payment method. In summary, the German payment landscape reflects a diverse mix of choices and preferences and is one of the most tricky for merchants to navigate.
Payment methods in the Netherlands
The undisputed leader in ecommerce payments in the Netherlands is iDEAL, a domestic bank transfer system. Consumers made 83% of ecommerce transactions using iDEAL in 2021, demonstrating high consumer trust in this alternative payment method.
Digital wallets also play a significant role in the Dutch payment landscape, constituting 28% of online purchases. Apple Pay and PayPal are the most common.
Payment methods in Italy
In Italy, credit cards are consumers' preferred online payment method, accounting for 37% of transactions in 2023. Digital wallets follow closely behind, accounting for 27% of online purchases. Cash on delivery is popular in Italy, representing 12% of transactions.
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services had a slow start in garnering interest among Italian shoppers, with only 2% of online transactions utilizing this method in 2020. However, the landscape is changing. Research indicates a substantial increase in the BNPL gross merchandise value in Italy, projected to surge from $4,094 million in 2021 to $25,988 million by 2028.
Payment methods in Spain
A 2022 survey found consumers used debit cards for almost two-thirds of ecommerce transactions in Spain. In the same year, 55% of consumers used PayPal at the checkout, and 25% used credit cards. Regarding mobile wallets, Spanish consumers favor Bizum, an instant mobile payment solution developed by the national banks.
Payment methods in the United Kingdom
Debit cards dominate the UK’s payment landscape, with around 90% of the population holding a Visa or Mastercard. These cards are central to facilitating digital payments across the region.
However, alternative payment methods are increasingly significant. Mobile wallets, such as Apple Pay and Google Pay, have become ubiquitous, making them essential for merchants to offer. Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options are also widely embraced, with 36% of Brits having used BNPL at least once.
Meanwhile, open banking payments are steadily gaining traction. Although they currently represent a small share of overall payment volumes, their popularity continues to rise as consumers and businesses explore their potential.
Are you looking to learn more about alternative payment methods in other regions?
- Learn about alternative payment methods in Asia Pacific.
- Learn more about alternative payment methods in the US.
- Learn about alternative payment methods in the Middle East and North Africa.
Why should businesses offer alternative payment methods in Europe?
Providing a range of payment options has become a strategic decision laden with many advantages.
- Enhance the customer experience: Meeting local payment preferences improves customer satisfaction and checkout conversion rates.
- Streamline the checkout process: Offering alternative payment methods reduces friction, decreasing cart abandonment.
- Entice new customers: Consumers are more likely to choose businesses that support their preferred payment methods, expanding your potential customer base.
Learn more about why multiple payment methods are a game-changer for your business.
How Primer helps businesses unlock new payment methods in Europe
Offering alternative and localized payment options is vital for a successful European payment strategy. But how can businesses implement them effectively?
Traditionally, this process is time-consuming and requires significant engineering resources to integrate and maintain multiple payment methods.
Primer solves this problem.
As a unified payments infrastructure, we’ve revolutionized how businesses manage payments. With a single API integration, you can connect to a wide range of payment methods, processors, and additional services, simplifying what used to be a complicated process and allowing you to make payments a lever for business growth.
Here are three ways we can help:
Integrate with global and local payment methods in seconds with our no-code solution
Payment preferences in Europe are highly localized, so offering local payment methods is essential to stay competitive. For example, expanding into the Netherlands without offering iDEAL would make it difficult to convert customers.
Primer makes it straightforward to integrate with local payment methods, including:
- iDEAL: A bank transfer method over 70% of Dutch consumers favored.
- Sofort: Widely used in Germany for secure and instant payments.
- Bancontact: A go-to for online shoppers in Belgium.
Of course, we can also integrate you with popular Europe-wide payment methods, like:
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Klarna
- PayPal
- AliPay
All of this is possible thanks to Primer’s unified API. This means that you only need to integrate with us once, and you have access to all of the above payment methods—without needing engineering support to add and remove them.
(See a full list of our integrated payment methods here)
Customize your checkout in seconds without needing technical expertise
How do you add these new payment methods to your checkout once switched on?
This is done through our Universal Checkout, which allows anyone on your team to edit your payment methods without requiring technical expertise.
There are two variations of universal checkout:
1. Drop-in Universal Checkout: With just a few lines of code, you can set up a fully functional, in-context checkout interface. This allows your team to quickly add or remove payment methods as needed without requiring technical expertise.
For instance, when the Apple Pay outage occurred in 2023, Primer customers could disable Apple Pay and activate alternative options like PayPal within seconds, ensuring uninterrupted transactions for their users.
2. Headless Checkout: For businesses needing more customization, Primer’s headless checkout puts you in charge of the entire checkout flow. Using Primer’s SDKs and APIs, your team can build a fully branded experience that aligns with your requirements.
For example, if you’re testing different checkout layouts to improve conversion rates, Primer’s Headless Checkout allows you to run A/B experiments and implement changes on the fly.
Regardless of what you use, Universal Checkout makes customizing your European checkouts effortless, allowing you to stay agile and up-to-date with the latest payment trends.
Unlock actionable insights with real-time data from all your payment methods
When adding new payment methods, it’s crucial that you can easily measure the impact.
But without Primer, you’d need to log into multiple dashboards and review multiple reports for each payment method, all in different formats. This is time-consuming and prone to human error.
Primer solves this with our Observability dashboard, which consolidates all your payment data—across multiple payment methods— into one unified platform.
You can easily track metrics that matter to your business using 100+ visualizations and 30+ filters.
For instance, with Observability, you can:
- Compare the performance of your APMs: Let’s say you’ve added Klarna and PayPal to your European checkouts. With Primer, you can track authorization rates side by side, identifying which method performs better in each country and refining your strategy accordingly.
- Understand customer segments: With Observability, you can analyze transaction volumes and average order values across different customer segments, such as age or gender. Uncover valuable trends, like which demographics prefer specific payment methods or spend more, to better tailor your payment strategy and drive growth.
- Set up Monitors: Our Monitors tool within the Observability Dashboard allows you to set up alerts for specific thresholds, such as your authorization rate dropping below 85%. When this happens, Monitor will alert you—through email, webhooks, or even Slack—so you can take action immediately.
How Ferryhopper used Primer to easily add alternative payment methods across Europe
Ferryhopper, an online travel agency transforming ferry bookings, has expanded to 12 European countries by focusing on what customers need most: simple and familiar payment methods. Partnering with Primer, they’ve made it easy to offer the payment methods people trust in each market.
For example, Ferryhopper added SEPA Direct Debit in Germany, a popular choice for local customers, and Bancontact in Belgium, where it’s used for most online transactions. Alongside these local options, they introduced Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal to give travelers even more flexibility at checkout.
Primer’s tools also help Ferryhopper keep payments running smoothly. They can see which methods perform best in different countries by tracking data like payment success rates. If there’s an issue, like a sudden drop in approvals, they can quickly fix it by rerouting payments to another provider.
With Primer, Ferryhopper has taken the stress out of payments, allowing them to focus on what they do best: helping travelers book ferries easily, no matter where they’re going.
Use Primer for your alternative payment methods in Europe
Adding alternative payment methods for each European country is a great way to improve your payment strategy. By offering localized and preferred payments, you can help reduce abandoned carts and improve conversions.
To find out how to get started with Primer, book a call with our expert team.
Sources:
https://ecommercenews.eu/online-payment-methods-europe/
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/france-buy-now-pay-later-services-market
https://ecommercenews.eu/preferred-payment-methods-in-europe-2021/
https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/netherland-payments-market/market-share
https://www.fisglobal.com/en/global-payments-report?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/434264/e-commerce-popular-payment-methods-spain/
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