European payment methods for SaaS in 2026: SEPA, iDEAL, Bancontact and Giropay

Giropay was switched off on 31 December 2024, and iDEAL is being folded into the European wallet Wero by the end of 2027. A European SaaS checkout in 2026 therefore rests on cards and wallets everywhere, iDEAL | Wero in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, and SEPA transfers and direct debits across the euro area.

Recurring support differs by method. iDEAL itself does not renew a subscription automatically. Bancontact can support recurring payments through its Wallet Initiated Payments programme for eligible merchants, Wero began rolling out subscription payments in 2026, and SEPA Direct Debit remains the dedicated bank-account pull rail for scheduled euro collections.

Europe by country in September 2026

SEPA and the 2025 instant payment rules

SEPA is the set of shared rules that lets euros move between bank accounts across Europe on the same terms as a domestic transfer. iDEAL starts a bank transfer from the payer's own account, so it behaves like a SEPA credit transfer with a friendlier front end. Bancontact is different: it is Belgium's domestic debit card scheme, so a Bancontact payment behaves more like a card payment authenticated in a banking app.

The Instant Payments Regulation changed the defaults

Regulation (EU) 2024/886 made instant euro transfers the norm, but the deadlines depend on the type of payment provider.

Banks and other account-servicing PSPs in the euro area have had to receive instant euro transfers since 9 January 2025 and send them since 9 October 2025. Payment institutions and electronic money institutions received a longer transition and have until 9 April 2027 to meet the send and receive requirements.

Funds must land within ten seconds, at any hour, and providers cannot charge more for an instant transfer than for a corresponding standard transfer.

Verification of Payee runs on a different timetable. Since 9 October 2025, euro-area PSPs, including payment institutions and electronic money institutions, have had to offer the service. It checks the name on the receiving account against the IBAN before the payer confirms the transfer.

Providers in member states outside the euro area follow the later deadlines set by the regulation.

For a SaaS company, a customer paying an invoice by bank transfer can increasingly clear it in seconds, and a mismatch between the name on the invoice and the name on the receiving account will show up as a warning in the payer's banking app.

SEPA Direct Debit comes in two schemes

SEPA Direct Debit is the dedicated bank-account pull method in this guide. It runs on a mandate: the customer authorises you once, and you collect against that authorisation each cycle.

That makes it different from Bancontact WIP and Wero subscription payments. Those can also support recurring use cases, but they operate through their own wallet or payment-scheme models rather than through a SEPA Direct Debit mandate.

The Core scheme works for consumers and businesses. A payer can request a refund within eight weeks of any collection without giving a reason, and up to 13 months after the debit if the collection was unauthorised. The B2B scheme is for business payers only and removes the refund right for authorised collections, but the payer's bank has to check every collection against the mandate, and consumers and microenterprises cannot use it.

Direct debit is also the cheapest method German online retailers pay for. The EHI Retail Institute's 2026 payment study put its average cost at 0.65% of revenue, against 1.42% for purchase on invoice and 1.94% for PayPal. Collections settle over days rather than seconds, though, so a failed payment surfaces well after the billing date and dunning has to allow for that lag.

iDEAL is becoming Wero

iDEAL handles about 1.3 billion transactions a year and 73% of Dutch online purchases, according to iDEAL itself. The European Payments Initiative (EPI), which owns iDEAL, started showing a joint iDEAL | Wero logo on checkouts and in banking apps in early 2026.

EPI's July 2026 update sets out the next phase. All Dutch issuing banks connect to Wero in October 2026, after which iDEAL payments move gradually onto Wero's infrastructure. Banks and payment providers have committed to finish the migration by 31 December 2027, and Wero scheme pricing stays broadly in line with current iDEAL | Wero pricing until 31 December 2028. Wero already counts 56 million users for person-to-person payments, and Dutch banks and payment providers aim for full purchase protection coverage by 1 January 2028.

Wero's scope is also expanding beyond one-off checkout. EPI said recurring payments and subscription management would arrive during 2026, and its subscription payment capability entered production in September 2026. The first subscription use cases are beginning to appear in France, although merchant, bank and country availability is still limited.

If your payment provider handles iDEAL, the move to Wero should need branding updates rather than an entirely separate checkout concept, but the new Wero capabilities are rolling out progressively. Avoid hard coding the iDEAL name into checkout copy or help pages.

Purchase protection adds a formal complaint route through the payer's banking app, so support teams should plan for Wero and migrated iDEAL disputes the way they already handle other payment disputes.

Bancontact is already mobile first

Belgians made more than 2.5 billion Bancontact and Payconiq payments in 2024, including 382 million online, and 90% of online Bancontact payments were made with a smartphone.

In November 2025 the company announced that in spring 2026 it would become Bancontact Company and its Payconiq by Bancontact app would become Bancontact Pay, retiring the Payconiq name. The same announcement froze current merchant prices until the end of 2026.

Wero went live for online payments in Belgium in March 2026, with ING, KBC and BNP Paribas Fortis first and acquirers including Mollie and Stripe supporting it.

The mobile share matters for checkout design. On desktop, providers such as Paddle show Bancontact buyers a QR code to scan with their phone, and on mobile they open the banking app. Test the return flow from the banking app on a real phone, because this handoff is where a redirect checkout can drop the buyer.

Bancontact is no longer limited to customer-present repeat payments either. Its Wallet Initiated Payments programme allows eligible merchants to tokenise the relationship after an initial authenticated payment and initiate later customer-not-present transactions without repeating Strong Customer Authentication each time.

That makes subscription models possible through Bancontact itself, but WIP is eligibility-gated and subject to review, so support depends on both the merchant and the payment provider.

Giropay is gone, and Germany split its volume

Giropay's owner, paydirekt, decided in June 2024 to wind the service down. Mollie and other providers stopped processing Giropay at the end of June 2024, and the scheme was switched off completely on 31 December 2024. According to EHI figures reported by heise, it carried only 0.4% of German ecommerce sales in 2023.

German banks moved their investment to Wero, which has taken online payments in Germany since the end of 2025.

No single method took Giropay's place. In EHI's 2026 study, PayPal held 28.7% of German online retail revenue in 2025, purchase on invoice 26.1%, direct debit 14.4%, and credit and debit cards 13.7%.

For a SaaS company selling to German buyers, PayPal and SEPA Direct Debit are the two methods that line up with those habits. If a pricing page, FAQ or checkout configuration still lists Giropay, remove it.

Recurring support differs by local payment method

iDEAL still requires the customer to approve the payment and does not independently pull each monthly renewal.

Bancontact is different. Eligible merchants can use Bancontact WIP for recurring customer-not-present payments after the customer's initial authenticated transaction. Availability depends on the payment provider and Bancontact approval, so it should not be treated as universally available recurring billing.

Wero is also moving into recurring payments. EPI put subscription management on its 2026 roadmap, and the first production subscription flows went live in September 2026. Availability is still rolling out by market, bank and merchant.

SEPA Direct Debit remains the clearest dedicated bank-account recurring rail. The customer gives a mandate once and collections can then run on schedule without a fresh checkout each month.

Another common pattern still uses a local payment method to take the first payment and create a SEPA Direct Debit mandate for renewals. Mollie supports this with methods including iDEAL and Bancontact as the first payment. Renewals then inherit the Core scheme's eight-week refund window, so this pattern helps conversion without reducing dispute exposure.

An annual plan paid once through a local method remains another option for products that do not need monthly recurring collection.

Choosing methods for an early stage SaaS

Selling to companies

For B2B sales inside the EU, the payment method matters less than the tax treatment. A business buyer with a valid VAT ID needs reverse charge applied and shown on the invoice, and getting that wrong creates a VAT liability for the seller.

SEPA Direct Debit under the B2B scheme becomes worth adding once annual contracts are large enough that finance teams ask to pay by bank rather than card.

Selling to consumers

In the Netherlands, iDEAL still matters heavily at the first payment, while monthly recurring billing needs another recurring mechanism until Wero subscriptions become broadly available across merchants and banks.

In Belgium, Bancontact matters at checkout and can also support recurring billing through WIP where the merchant and provider are eligible.

Wero adds another recurring option as its subscription rollout expands.

In Germany, offer PayPal and consider SEPA Direct Debit once volume justifies the refund risk.

tiun and European payment methods

tiun is a Swiss merchant of record hosted in Europe. Its checkout supports Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards plus Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and TWINT, where available by region, and its documentation does not list iDEAL, Bancontact or SEPA Direct Debit as of September 2026. tiun has not published a roadmap for these methods, so check its current documentation before deciding on that basis. By comparison, Paddle offers iDEAL and Bancontact for one time purchases only, and Dodo Payments lists iDEAL, Bancontact, EPS and Multibanco.

For a monthly subscription product, the practical gap is narrower than the method lists suggest: iDEAL doesn't renew a plan by itself, Bancontact WIP is eligibility-gated, and Wero recurring payments are still early. Teams that need SEPA Direct Debit for euro renewals, or iDEAL and Bancontact for one-time and annual sales to Dutch and Belgian consumers, will be better served by a provider that offers them today.

tiun covers the rest of the European setup an early stage team would otherwise assemble: PayPal for German buyers, VAT calculated at checkout and remitted by tiun as the legal seller, VAT ID validation with automatic reverse charge on B2B invoices, customer data stored in EU data centres, and authentication and a customer database in the same system. Pricing is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction and 0.5% on subscription payments, with international cards and currency conversion included. tiun does not support external wire transfer invoicing for enterprise contracts, so teams closing invoiced annual deals will need another route for those.

Frequently asked questions

Is Giropay still available in 2026?

No. Giropay was discontinued on 31 December 2024, and many payment providers stopped supporting it at the end of June 2024.

German online shoppers now mostly use PayPal, purchase on invoice, direct debit and cards, and Wero has taken online payments in Germany since late 2025.

Is iDEAL being discontinued?

The iDEAL brand is being replaced by Wero, with the migration due to finish by 31 December 2027.

Dutch shoppers will keep paying through their own bank, while Wero is expanding the scheme beyond iDEAL's existing checkout model to include capabilities such as subscriptions.

Merchants using a payment provider should see the migration handled largely through their provider, although branding and newly supported Wero features will change over the transition.

Can I charge monthly subscriptions with iDEAL or Bancontact?

With iDEAL itself, not directly. The customer approves each iDEAL payment, so a common setup is to use iDEAL for the first transaction and establish a SEPA Direct Debit mandate for later renewals.

Bancontact is different. Bancontact WIP can support recurring customer-not-present subscription payments after an initial authenticated transaction, but merchants must meet the programme's eligibility requirements and use a payment provider that supports it.

Wero has also begun rolling out subscription payments in 2026, although availability is still limited compared with established recurring methods.

Can SEPA Direct Debit payments be reversed?

Yes, under the Core scheme. Payers can claim a refund within eight weeks of a collection for any reason, and within 13 months if the collection was unauthorised.

The B2B scheme removes the refund right for authorised collections but is only open to eligible business payers.

Do I need a Dutch or Belgian company to accept iDEAL or Bancontact?

No. A payment provider or merchant of record that supports the method can accept it for you. Paddle, for example, states that no Dutch or Belgian bank account is needed.