The German Sparkassen (savings banks) are among the few European incumbents thriving in payments. S-Payment, the merchant services division of DSV Group, a central organisation providing services to the 353 member Sparkassen, saw revenues rise from €249.5m in 2023 to €291.8m in 2024 — a 17% increase. The information is included with DSV’s 2024 annual report although S-Payment’s profits are not disclosed.
Higher revenues were attributed to “services for marketing and development projects for card-based and digital payment applications, as well as from the high acceptance of mobile payment applications.”
S-Payment volume from Apple Pay and Google Pay reached €7 billion in Q1 2025, up 35% year-on-year. Girocard transactions rose 12% to 295 million, significantly outpacing the domestic payment scheme’s annual growth of 5.6%. S-Payment’s terminal estate also grew by 5%.
S-Payment is well positioned to profit as cash usage continues to decline in Germany, and the trend may accelerate if the new federal government follows through on plans to mandate digital payment acceptance at shops and restaurants.
The company is bullish on its softPOS (“Scan to Pay” on mobile), which it claims has been downloaded 2 million times and processed 21 million transactions in Q1 2025. The solution supports Alipay+ and Bluecode. Here’s a fun promotional video:
For slightly larger merchants, S-Payment will offer a new “Cube” terminal (manufactured by CCV), designed to bridge the gap between softPOS and full POS systems.
Management is also very positive about wero, Europe’s new account-to-account solution that aims to “close the giropay gap” for online bank payments. One million Sparkasse customers have activated wero within their mobile banking apps, though there’s no usage data yet available.
The S-Payment division also includes:
- S-Public Services, which had a particularly strong year. It counts 3,800 public-sector institutions among its clients. Two-thirds of German municipalities already use GiroCheckout for online payments. In partnership with PAYONE, S-Payment won the nationwide tender for ePayBL, the federal and state governments’ online billing platform for administrative services.
- 40% of PAYONE, the online payment and merchant acquiring joint venture with Worldline. Worldline shareholders will be reassured to learn that no impairments or write-downs related to PAYONE were noted in S-Payment’s 2024 report.
- 33% of GIZS, a joint venture originally formed to support the now-defunct paydirekt scheme. GIZS has since pivoted to supporting broader payment innovation within the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe.
- 22.5% of SRC Security Research & Consulting, which provides PCI and cybersecurity services and is recognised as a Common Criteria evaluation lab.
- 12% of qards, the issuer processor formed from the merger of Bayern Card Services and PLUSCARD. It now handles over 28 million Visa and Mastercard-branded Sparkassen cards.
Further growth is expected in 2025, with management forecasting “additional revenue through the further development and implementation of both physical and digital payment cards, as well as mobile payment solutions.” Management makes a point of restating its optimism about the future of Girocard, with continued digitisation and a new partnership with PAYBACK, the country’s leading loyalty programme which allows card holders to automatically earn points when they pay by card.
