PayLens Radar: Mollie closes GoCardless, Wero replaces Payconiq in Luxembourg

PayLens Radar · Tuesday 8 September

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Mollie closes its EUR 1.1bn takeover of GoCardless

Mollie completed its roughly EUR 1.1bn acquisition of GoCardless on 1 September, more than 90 percent of it paid in shares. The combined group serves over 350,000 businesses in 30-plus markets and pairs card acceptance with GoCardless's Pay by Bank rails across 38 countries.

It is the year's largest European PSP consolidation outside Global Payments and Worldpay, and it bets that the mid-market merchant buys cards, direct debit, Pay by Bank, an account and financing from one provider. The contest moves from card economics to owning the whole money flow.

Mollie · Read the article

• Wero replaces Payconiq in Luxembourg

  EPI switched Wero on in Luxembourg on 1 September and Payconiq closes for good on 30 September, making this the first market where the wallet replaces a national scheme outright rather than launching beside one.

  EUProduct

• Orange takes Wero for monthly bills in France

  Orange is letting Sosh customers pay their monthly bills with Wero, the first merchant bill-payment use case for the wallet in France; it starts with BNP Paribas customers and widens to more French banks through the second half of 2026.

  FRProduct

• PayPal cuts staff to reach USD 400m of savings

  PayPal confirmed staff cuts on 1 September as it chases USD 400m of run-rate savings by year end, weeks after Stripe and Advent walked away from their USD 53bn approach; the standalone plan under Enrique Lores is cost, not growth.

  GLOBALStrategy

• Merchants ask for a cash-acceptance exemption

  EuroCommerce, HOTREC and a coalition of merchant bodies asked the legal-tender trilogue for a narrow right to refuse cash where handling it creates demonstrable safety or security risks, with Member States defining the qualifying contexts.

  EUStrategy

• Fiserv weighs selling a debit network

  Fiserv told analysts on 1 and 2 September that it is exploring the sale of one of its two debit networks, Star or Accel, and will collapse the fourteen payment gateways it still runs onto a single modernised platform.

  GLOBALStrategy

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