2025 retrospective: how French expertise delivered performance in payments

In 2025, Payplug further strengthened its position as a leading payments expert in France and across Europe. Throughout the year, we reaffirmed our commitment to making payments a genuine growth driver for our merchants.

From technological advances to new partnerships, let’s take a look back at the key moments that shaped an exceptional year. 

Maximising payment performance: expertise built to drive your sales

Supporting OSMP compliance

This year, the Observatory for the Security of Payment Means (OSMP) introduced new security standards for online payments. These changes — a precursor to the Payment Services Regulation (PSR) expected to come into force across Europe in 2027 — required merchants to adapt their payment strategies quickly.

At Payplug, we supported merchants through this transition with practical, performance-focused solutions:

• optimising 3D Secure from the moment each transaction is initiated,
• bringing recurring payments into compliance through valid transaction chaining,
• enriching customer data to facilitate exemptions granted by issuers.

Thanks to our strong local expertise and close relationship with Groupe BPCE and the Cartes Bancaires (CB) scheme, our merchants were able to turn these new regulatory constraints into concrete growth opportunities.

Wero: the European payment solution

2025 marked the rise of Wero, the new European payment solution developed by the European Payments Initiative (EPI). Launched in 2024 with its peer-to-peer payment service, Wero reached a major milestone this year with the rollout of its e-commerce solution in Germany. Its launch in France is scheduled for 2026.

As a subsidiary of Groupe BPCE, one of the founding members of the EPI consortium, Payplug has positioned itself as a strategic partner for the adoption of Wero. École du Ski Français has already become our first client committed to deploying the solution — a strong signal of Wero’s relevance for businesses with higher average basket values.

100% European, Wero delivers tangible advantages for merchants:

• a single technical integration to access multiple European markets,
• higher conversion rates, particularly on mobile,
• increased average transaction value enabled by higher spending limits.

Our CB expertise drives payment acceptance

In 2025, we further cemented our role as a leading player within the Cartes Bancaires (CB) scheme. As a result, our merchants benefit from outstanding acceptance rates on CB transactions — a direct outcome of our deep understanding of the French payment system.

Our competitive edge is built on three complementary pillars:

• a solution rooted in French market specifics, designed to deliver structurally higher performance nationwide;
• advanced mastery of data processing, including precise formatting — a decisive factor in payment acceptance;
• dedicated merchant support, driven by our in-depth knowledge of the French market and its unique characteristics, enabling merchants to maximise their acceptance rates.

Thanks to our strategic role within the payments ecosystem, we don’t simply follow market developments, we actively help shape them.

A clear illustration of this approach is our Fastpass connection protocol, which delivers up to 98% frictionless authentication requests accepted on cards issued by Groupe BPCE¹. This innovation demonstrates our ability to turn regulatory challenges into real performance opportunities for our clients.

An integrated, omnichannel payment experience

A solution embedded at the heart of the merchant ecosystem

Our approach to payments is built on seamless integration within the merchant ecosystem. We connect effortlessly with business tools such as CMS platforms, point-of-sale systems, ERP, and OMS, delivering a truly omnichannel payment solution. These integrations centralise all payments (online and in-store) on a single platform.

In 2025, we further expanded our solutions with several key enhancements:

• a new payment module compatible with Salesforce Commerce Cloud, the leading e-commerce platform for high-volume merchants, enabling a consistent omnichannel shopping experience across all channels;
• Apple Pay on CB, giving French consumers access to Apple Pay on the national card scheme;
• Apple Pay Desktop, which resolves incompatibilities on specific desktop browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) by enabling payment via a QR code scanned with an iPhone — without requiring Safari;
• WooCommerce Subscriptions, allowing customers to subscribe to products or services and pay weekly, monthly, or annually.

These developments reflect our ongoing commitment to delivering solutions that integrate seamlessly with our merchants’ technical ecosystems while maximising conversion rates.

Omnichannel in action: the Boutique by Payplug

To bring our vision of unified commerce to life, we created the “Boutique by Payplug”. Showcased at NRF Europe and Tech for Retail, this pop-up store allowed visitors to experience our solution in real conditions and test our omnichannel payment journeys first-hand.

The demonstrations highlighted:

• our ability to integrate our solution seamlessly with a wide range of point-of-sale systems;
• our SoftPOS solution, which turns a smartphone or PDA into a payment terminal;
• real-time transaction reporting within our unified portal;
• automatic accounting reconciliation, significantly simplifying financial management.

Fluid, connected, and customer-centric, payments become an enabler, rather than a technical constraint.

Strategic partnerships

Scalapay: split payments built for scale and conversion

Our partnership with Scalapay, a leading Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)  player in Europe, will roll out in two stages: the onboarding of Scalapay payment flows by the end of 2025, followed by the integration of split payments into Payplug’s solutions in the first quarter of 2026.

This collaboration responds to growing demand for greater payment flexibility. Split payments are proven to deliver tangible impact, increasing conversion rates by 10 to 20% and average transaction value by 30 to 50%.²

Groupe Eram: trust that reflects our omnichannel expertise

Groupe Eram’s decision to partner with Payplug — across its nine brands and 750 stores — highlights the strength of our omnichannel approach. Our solution, currently being implemented, offers them:

• enhanced payment performance,
• a unified view of transactions,
• simplified integration within their ecosystem,
• smoother in-store payment journeys,
• and dedicated support from our experts.

This rollout illustrates our ability to support major retail players through their transformation, turning payments into a genuine driver of performance and customer experience.

Looking ahead to 2026: deepening our commitment to integrated, high-performance payments

2025 confirmed Payplug’s position as a trusted partner for merchants in France and across Europe. In 2026, we will continue to meet the market’s growing expectations around omnichannel commerce, while maintaining our commitment to payment performance excellence.

Our ambition remains unchanged: to turn payments into a strategic growth lever for our merchants.

We are also closely monitoring emerging trends shaping the future of payments, such as agentic commerce. By leveraging artificial intelligence to personalise and automate the shopping experience, this evolution represents a major opportunity to rethink and elevate payment journeys.

Together, let’s continue to push the boundaries of payments.
We extend our sincere thanks to our clients, partners, and teams for their trust and commitment.

Sources: 1. Payplug data ; 2. ECN, Étude BNPL 2025