Payments

Customers in Poland can now make payments in stores and online, withdraw cash and send P2P transfers, all using their mobile phone. They can do this with Blik, a new service set up by Polish Payment Standard, a company that's formed by Poland's six largest banks.

Mangopay, a payment solution for marketplaces and crowdfunding platforms, has expanded its service to the UK. It has opened offices at a technology accelerator space in London. Mangopay has chosen Barclays as the sole provider of its UK banking services.

Swish, an app owned by six Swedish banks, can soon be used for ecommerce transactions. The payment solution that enables consumers to make real-time payments using their mobile phone has introduced a consumer-to-business solution and now wants to expand its service to the ecommerce sector.

Payment company Adyen processed over 21 billion euros ($25 billion) in payments transactions in 2014, which is almost an increase of 80% over 2013. At the same time the Dutch company grew by 100% in terms of revenue and by 40% in new customers.

Businesses in Europe can now let customers pay online using Login and Pay with Amazon, a payments feature of Amazon. This way, customers can go from browsing to buying in just a few clicks. They don't have to create an account on third party sites anymore to complete a purchase.

PayPal's Pay After Delivery will soon be available in the Netherlands, which makes it the third country after the United States and Spain to offer this service to its customers. With Pay After Delivery customers get 14 days for their item to be delivered before they pay for their purchase.

Online payment solutions provider Klarna recently hired its first employee in America and is hoping to launch in the USA early next year, sources told the New York Times. The ambitious move comes after Klarna became available to British shoppers two months ago. Once started in its home country Sweden, Klarna is slowly moving towards global expansion.

The Dutch in general have a good reputation when it comes to paying their bills. Therefore paying by invoice and thus after delivery has been very common. Nonetheless the larger Dutch banks founded iDeal, an online payment method that forces consumers to pay in advance. The method is the most frequently used payment method among Dutch internet consumers. How does that effect post-pay behavior?

Klarna has taken another step toward expanding its presence in Europe by launching its services in the United Kingdom. The Swedish ecommerce company will invest 125 million euros in product development and roll-out, Klarna’s CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski confirmed at the London Technology Week. Klarna will have London as its base in the UK.

There are over 200 payment methods used around the world and credit card is one of the most popular methods. In the United States anyhow. In Europe however, there are countries were the credit card is rarely used. Alternative Payments made an interesting infographic about credit card alternatives.

The French ecommerce solution PrestaShop has expanded its ecommerce partnership with payment provider Authorize.Net. Merchants who use software from PrestaShop and have an Authorize.Net account now are able to prcoess payments in multiple currencies.

When it comes to online shopping, credit cards still rule the payments landscape in Europe. But alternate payment methods are growing at a fast pace. The latest data shows us again that you can´t see Europe as one region; every country has its own preferred payment methods. Let’s have a look.

Klarna Checkout is a new solution from the Swedish invoice payment provider, that enables online retailers to offer their customers all the popular payment methods in one payment solution. Customers only need to provide their e-mail address and postcode to complete a purchase. We tried it out at the Klarna office in Amsterdam.

Mangopay, a payment solution for marketplaces, crowdfunding and collaborative platforms is aiming for transactions totaling 500 million euros by 2015. The capital injection that was announced this week will probably help Mangopay with this as well with its growth ambitions in Europe.

It seems the bitcoin is here to stay. More people are getting familiar with the virtual currency and an increasing number of online stores now accept bitcoin as a valid payment method. Here in Europe we’ve noticed this as well, as we’ve seen several online retailers change their websites and online payment options.