Looking for PayPal alternative in Germany - Bunq, Klarna, Revolut or N26?

Hello everyone,

I'm living in Germany and looking for a good PayPal alternative. I mainly need it for:

Sending money to friends
Paying online, especially to small vendors
Ordering food and everyday purchases

I've heard about Bunq, Klarna, Revolut, and N26, but I'm not sure which one would be best for my needs. Has anyone had experience with these services in Germany? Which would you recommend and why?

Thanks in advance!

40 comments

Revolut is great, but more like a banking servive than a payment service. You'll get virtual credit card details that you can use to pay, just like with regular credit cards. Haven't used N26, but I think they're similar from what I've heard..
Klarna is widely used, but I heard they can be quite predatory and make it very easy to make debt, which they then use to squeeze hella fees from you until you paid everything off.
No idea about Bunq.

Well I use Revolut and even get my salary paid on it so I'd say its good. Bunq is a stay away thing, too dangerous. Klarna is very bad with their buy now pay later stuff putting people in debt, N26 is more expensive than Revolut iirc so I didn't try it.
Do take in mind all of these still use Visa/Mastercard for payments which is american

For friends i use SEPA, for the rest i just use my debit card
If i wanted to add a layer, i could add a rechargeable card to my bank account
Digital euro is slowly coming anyway

I just want to give a quick shout out to the GNU Taler project. It may not be usable yet, but the initiative is commendable and they are funded by the European commission.
- How bascially awesome is this? I never heard of it before, but I would love to see it skyrocketing.

wero https://wero-wallet.eu/
- It's absurd that this only works if your bank is officially on board. All this really is is a phone number/e-mail to IBAN "DNS". It shouldn't be that complicated.
  If I'm gonna have to go through "do you have Wero? No? Would you consider getting it? Oh, your bank is not in on it? That sucks." every time, a normal bank transfer via IBAN is certainly quicker. Free real time transfers are mandatory now anyway.
  
  that’s exactly how PayID works in australia: in every bank interface you can “pay to” email addresses, phone numbers, ABN (australian business number) and a whole range of things, and it’s implemented as essentially a DNS of those things to our version of IBAN - it works great! and some banks automatically give you an
  <username>
  @
  <short domain>
  (up bank for example has whoever@up.me) associated with your account, orrrr services to pay bills sometimes have
  <account number>
  @
  <service payment domain>
  i was just in europe and did some bank transfers and received - both with european bank accounts - and was pleasantly surprised that it was instant!
  these 2 things combined in australia means we don’t have these shit middle-men and it’s all insured etc the same as any old money transfer (because it is) and you’re not relying on some “totally not a bank so we don’t follow banking regulations”
- Thanks for suggesting Wero! I tried it out, but unfortunately, they're incompatible with my bank (Deutsche Bank). It does seem super cool, though! I'll follow their progress and hope they add support soon. I appreciate the recommendation.
  
  Deutsche Bank folgt im kommenden Jahr (Deutsche Bank will follow next year)
  Edit: The post is from November 2024, so I assume that next year means 2025.
- I am currently using N26, which seems not supported. 😔
  Maybe I should switch away from N26... I don't like them anymore.

For quick money exchange with friends, I simply use SEPA. Because the handling of the SEPA numbers is a bit cumbersome I build the PayPal Alternative BezahlBrudi. It generates a QR code you can simply scan with your banking app. Feel free to use it and give me feedback.
It doesn't store any info on my server. The form inputs are stored locally in a cookie so you don't have to input your data over and over again.
- I see payment-request QR codes pop up in various places recently, nice to have these quality of life improvements

I only heard bad things from Klarna. The worst story is from a buddy of mine who used the service once, paid everything and now semi regularly keeps getting threats about debt collection for things he didn't even look at.
Idk about you but for me personally this is enough to make me not want to try them. Especially since I'm missing positive or even neutral reviews.
- It's a shame that the Buy European movement isn't always able to account for European companies that are shitty.
  
  Maybe the movement will be a chance for new good European companies to rise at least. It definitely should make it a bit easier for (new) companies to advertise their products vs "big US", as previously you often needed a bit more than just "this service is European" to get people to switch.
  By now I'm noticing some people being willing to change even if a few features are missing/not yet implemented when before that was a dealbreaker to them, no matter whether they actually used said features or not.

@ShadyQuark By the way... Here in NL the banks switched their Maestro cards over to Visa debit cards which enable you to easily make online purchases and allow me to kick out PayPal.
Visa is still US, though... sigh... compromises...
And you don't get the purchase protection you get with PP or a "real" creditcard.
- Maestro is just mastercard tho :(
  
  @Kualdir Yep... That's why I say compromises... With the demise / fusion of Eurocard there are no more alternatives left.
- I wish there was a European payments provider like India has RuPay :(
  
  @ShadyQuark @rraggl
  Sweden has Swish.... And what about WERO?
- Ing Diba (which is dutch I think) hands these out in Germany as well. Pretty handy if you don't use actual credit cards.

@ShadyQuark Stay away from bunq... I say that as a former customer. There was a huge outcry last year in the Netherlands about them.
They flat out refused to help or limit the damage for customers that were victims of fraud.
And that while being the most expensive bank around regarding fees.
- This Seems to be the prevailing option online too. I also found that N26 and Revolut are just as shady. During my research, it seems like N26 is the worst option. Not only is it supported/funded by Peter Thiel and other American oligarchs it has a shady history Source (in German) And Revolut while mostly British also has significant Russian ownership /ties
  
  Well, dangit, there go my plans to check out the depot & stocks with N26. I didn't know that - thanks for the info. Now I gotta find an alternative that doesn't suck.

@ShadyQuark@feddit.org I think the closest thing to PayPal would be wero
To use it, however, you must have an account with one of the big “mainstream” banks. Theoretically, the system is open to all european banks, but I don't know to what extent neobanks like N26, Revolut or Bunq have already integrated it... In addition, wero only really started this year and is currently only available for private use. Integration for (online) merchants is yet to follow

Bank transfers and credit/debit cards.

Been on revolut for years on their metal plan, super good everything. I highly recommend 🤓

According to this thread, you should use neither of them. 🥲

@ShadyQuark I have an answer that is generalizable across many European states. There is the European Mobile Payment Systems Association:
https://empsa.org/
The payment systems here are widely used in many EU countries. I have not lived in Germany, generally when I travel there, I am astonished how much cash-based everything is (I have no strong opinion on it, though).
- @szewek@mastodon.social @ShadyQuark@feddit.org I am familiar with EMPSA, but I have never used it personally. I don't think there is a provider for it in Germany, at least I'm not aware of any. Even if it would be cool to have a standardized European solution!
- @ShadyQuark So in Germany it would be Bluecode. Idk how widely used it is.
  I've lived in Poland and Sweden, Blik and Swish can be used almost everywhere, including many grocery stores and most online purchases (so it is an alternative to Visa/Mastercard as well).
  
  To bad, in never heard of https://bluecode.com before.
  Technically speaking it would be interesting to see if Bilk, Swish, Bluecode and Wero would be compatible to each other.

@ShadyQuark #N26 is also run by #PeterThiel and I do recommend to just get a basic account if you already are in Germany.
One doesn't even need a residency for that.
Don't take my.word for it: @BaFin is the authority on that matter!
https://www.bafin.de/EN/Verbraucher/Bank/Produkte/Basiskonto/basiskontonodeen.html
The main problem is that banks in the #EU csn only do #SEPA and #SWIFT, so if a recipient in in the #USA they may not even have an #IBAN!
- @ShadyQuark #Klarna works great as #PaymentProcessor...
  https://feddit.org/post/9039913

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