This page provides the list that the provider comparison uses. For each country the site covers, it lists the systems residents normally use to pay online.
Closed rails appear on the list with live ones. You may remember a system from when you last funded an account, and a broker’s own page may still show it. So the list labels such systems as closed and includes the date where one is known.
Key points
- Every bank in the euro area now has to send and receive instant transfers. Since the EU rule’s deadlines have passed, SEPA Instant now counts as a home rail in every euro-area country this site covers (Regulation (EU) 2024/886).
- At the end of 2024, Germany’s two bank-backed online payment methods, giropay and paydirekt, were closed. The banks have named Wero as the replacement (Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft).
- PayPal isn’t treated as local to any single country. Brokers offer it in many countries, so the comparison puts it alongside funding methods that stay the same everywhere. People do use it to pay online, as the FCA, the PSR, the Bundesbank and Banco de España show. In Poland it’s marginal (Narodowy Bank Polski).
- Several well-known systems are often thought of as national, but MyBank is pan-European, Satispay holds a Luxembourg licence and Klarna is a Swedish company. SEPA only moves euro, so you can’t use it to fund a sterling or złoty account. When you withdraw, the payment method can also charge its own fee (costs and fees).
The rails, country by country
A single table lists the rails for all countries. Each rail in each country gets its own row. A rail appears under a country because people normally use it to pay there, and the row’s note tells you where the operator is based.
| Country | Rail | Type | Operator | Status | Note | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | Klarna Pay Now | open banking | Klarna Bank AB | live | A Swedish bank's pay-by-bank service and the successor to Sofort, Germany's pay-by-bank method for fifteen years. It's listed under Germany for that reason. | Stripe |
| Germany | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| Germany | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer | instant bank transfer | European Payments Council | live | Money arrives within ten seconds. Every euro-area bank must offer it under Regulation (EU) 2024/886: receiving since 9 January 2025 and sending since 9 October 2025. Poland's deadlines are 9 January and 9 July 2027, so it isn't yet a home rail there. | Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex) |
| Germany | Wero | bank app payment | EPI Company SE (European Payments Initiative) | live | Successor to giropay and paydirekt in Germany and to Paylib in France. Payments between people since July 2024. Online checkout in Germany since November 2025, and partly rolled out in France. | EPI Company, Banque de France |
| Germany | giropay | bank app payment | Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft | discontinued | Closed on 31 December 2024. The operator names Wero as its successor. | Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (girocard) |
| Germany | paydirekt | bank app payment | Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft | discontinued | Wound down with giropay and closed on 31 December 2024. | Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (girocard) |
| Germany | Sofort | open banking | Klarna Bank AB | discontinued | Shops stopped taking it around October 2024. The same service lives on as Klarna Pay Now. | Stripe |
| Spain | Bizum | bank app payment | Bizum, S.L., owned by about twenty-two Spanish banks | live | Founded in 2016 and works only in Spain. Used for payments between people, in shops and online. | Bizum |
| Spain | MyBank | open banking | PRETA S.A.S., controlled by EBA Clearing | live | A pan-European scheme that sends you to your bank login at checkout to approve a SEPA transfer. Common at Italian checkouts, but it isn't an Italian scheme. | MyBank (PRETA) |
| Spain | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| Spain | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer | instant bank transfer | European Payments Council | live | Money arrives within ten seconds. Every euro-area bank must offer it under Regulation (EU) 2024/886: receiving since 9 January 2025 and sending since 9 October 2025. Poland's deadlines are 9 January and 9 July 2027, so it isn't yet a home rail there. | Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex) |
| France | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| France | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer | instant bank transfer | European Payments Council | live | Money arrives within ten seconds. Every euro-area bank must offer it under Regulation (EU) 2024/886: receiving since 9 January 2025 and sending since 9 October 2025. Poland's deadlines are 9 January and 9 July 2027, so it isn't yet a home rail there. | Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex) |
| France | Wero | bank app payment | EPI Company SE (European Payments Initiative) | live | Successor to giropay and paydirekt in Germany and to Paylib in France. Payments between people since July 2024. Online checkout in Germany since November 2025, and partly rolled out in France. | EPI Company, Banque de France |
| Italy | Bancomat Pay | bank app payment | BANCOMAT S.p.A. | live | Payments to people, shops and public offices, linked to an Italian bank account (IBAN). | BANCOMAT S.p.A. |
| Italy | MyBank | open banking | PRETA S.A.S., controlled by EBA Clearing | live | A pan-European scheme that sends you to your bank login at checkout to approve a SEPA transfer. Common at Italian checkouts, but it isn't an Italian scheme. | MyBank (PRETA) |
| Italy | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| Italy | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer | instant bank transfer | European Payments Council | live | Money arrives within ten seconds. Every euro-area bank must offer it under Regulation (EU) 2024/886: receiving since 9 January 2025 and sending since 9 October 2025. Poland's deadlines are 9 January and 9 July 2027, so it isn't yet a home rail there. | Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex) |
| Poland | BLIK | bank app payment | Polski Standard Płatności S.A. | live | You pay with a one-time code from your bank's app. The National Bank of Poland named it an important retail payment system in 2023, and 49.5 % of people in the bank's 2023 survey used it. | Polski Standard Płatności, Narodowy Bank Polski |
| Poland | Express Elixir | instant bank transfer | Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa (KIR) | live | Instant transfers in złoty, 24/7, up to PLN 100,000 each. 636 million payments in 2025. | KIR |
| Poland | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| Poland | PayU | pay-by-link | PayU S.A. | live | The first Polish payment institution the KNF licensed, in 2012. | PayU |
| Poland | Przelewy24 | pay-by-link | PayPro S.A. | live | A pay-by-link service that sends you to your own bank login to pay. It took over Dotpay. | Przelewy24 (PayPro) |
| Poland | Tpay | pay-by-link | Krajowy Integrator Płatności S.A. | live | Takes pay-by-link and BLIK payments. The KNF widened its licence to cover starting payments from bank accounts in 2020. | Tpay |
| Poland | Dotpay | pay-by-link | PayPro S.A. | discontinued | The brand was retired and merged into Przelewy24. | Przelewy24 (PayPro) |
| Portugal | MB WAY | bank app payment | SIBS | live | Mobile payments built on the Multibanco network. The operator counts 6.5 million users. | SIBS |
| Portugal | Multibanco | payment reference | SIBS | live | Portugal's network linking the banks since 1985. A broker would take it as an online payment by Multibanco reference. | SIBS (Multibanco) |
| Portugal | MyBank | open banking | PRETA S.A.S., controlled by EBA Clearing | live | A pan-European scheme that sends you to your bank login at checkout to approve a SEPA transfer. Common at Italian checkouts, but it isn't an Italian scheme. | MyBank (PRETA) |
| Portugal | Open banking (PSD2 payment initiation) | open banking | Payment institutions licensed under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 | live | A payment straight from your bank account, started by logging in to your bank. Providers hold a national licence or use one across the EEA. No regulator ranks them by volume. | BaFin, Banco de España, Banca d’Italia, Banco de Portugal, ACPR |
| Portugal | SEPA Instant Credit Transfer | instant bank transfer | European Payments Council | live | Money arrives within ten seconds. Every euro-area bank must offer it under Regulation (EU) 2024/886: receiving since 9 January 2025 and sending since 9 October 2025. Poland's deadlines are 9 January and 9 July 2027, so it isn't yet a home rail there. | Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex) |
| United Kingdom | Faster Payments | instant bank transfer | Pay.UK | live | Real-time transfers between banks, 24/7, since 2008. The scheme allows up to £1,000,000 per payment, and banks set lower limits for their own customers. 5.55 billion payments in 2025. | Pay.UK |
| United Kingdom | Open banking | open banking | Open Banking Limited | live | Regulated payments straight from your bank account, under the CMA Order and the Payment Services Regulations 2017. Brokers use it through licensed providers such as TrueLayer, Yapily and Tink. No regulator ranks them. | Open Banking Limited |
| United Kingdom | Pay by Bank | bank app payment | Mastercard (Vocalink), through participating banks' own apps | live | You approve the payment inside your own banking app, and the money moves over Faster Payments. | Open Banking Limited |
| United Kingdom | Paym | bank app payment | Pay.UK | discontinued | Closed 7 March 2023. | Pay.UK |
| Australia | BPAY | payment reference | Australian Payments Plus | live | Pays a biller from online banking using a biller code and a reference number. | Australian Payments Plus |
| Australia | PayID | instant bank transfer | Australian Payments Plus | live | Instant transfer to an email address, phone number or ABN over the New Payments Platform, with Osko. | Australian Payments Plus |
| Argentina | Transferencia inmediata | instant bank transfer | Banco Central de la República Argentina (rules), banks and payment service providers | live | Immediate transfers between bank accounts (CBU) and payment accounts (CVU) under the central bank's Transferencias 3.0 rules. The central bank reports on them in its yearly survey of retail payments. DEBIN, the older kind of transfer started by the person being paid, was folded into it. | Banco Central de la República Argentina |
| Brazil | Pix | instant bank transfer | Banco Central do Brasil | live | The central bank's own instant-payment scheme, live since November 2020 and open around the clock at every bank and payment institution in Brazil. | Banco Central do Brasil |
| Chile | Webpay | card checkout | Transbank S.A. | live | Transbank's online checkout for Chilean debit and credit cards. It's the usual way to pay a Chilean website. | Transbank S.A. |
| Colombia | Bre-B | instant bank transfer | Banco de la República | live | The central bank's instant-payment system, launched in 2025. It moves money between accounts using a key such as a phone number. | Banco de la República |
| Colombia | PSE | pay-by-link | ACH Colombia | live | Pagos Seguros en Línea pays a website straight from a Colombian bank account. The banks' own clearing house runs it. | ACH Colombia |
| Mexico | SPEI | instant bank transfer | Banco de México | live | Banco de México's electronic payment system between banks, used for an ordinary transfer from a Mexican bank account. The central bank issues the electronic proof of each payment. | Banco de México |
| Peru | Plin | bank app payment | Plin (BBVA, Interbank, Scotiabank and partner banks) | live | A payment service built into participating Peruvian banks' own apps. | Plin |
| Peru | Yape | wallet | Banco de Crédito del Perú | live | BCP's payment app, interoperable with other Peruvian banks and wallets. | Banco de Crédito del Perú |
| Indonesia | BI-FAST | instant bank transfer | Bank Indonesia | live | Bank Indonesia's real-time system for everyday transfers, live since December 2021. | Bank Indonesia |
| Indonesia | QRIS | bank app payment | Bank Indonesia (standard), licensed payment service providers | live | The national standard for paying by QR code, set by Bank Indonesia and used by banks and e-wallets since 2019. | Bank Indonesia |
| Malaysia | DuitNow | instant bank transfer | PayNet (Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd) | live | Malaysia's instant transfer and QR payment service. It sends money by phone number or ID between banks and e-wallets. | PayNet |
| Malaysia | FPX | bank app payment | PayNet (Payments Network Malaysia Sdn Bhd) | live | The usual way to pay a Malaysian website straight from an online bank account. | PayNet |
| Philippines | InstaPay | instant bank transfer | Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (framework), automated clearing house operator | live | Real-time transfers of up to ₱50,000 each between Philippine banks and e-money issuers, since 2018. | Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas |
| Philippines | PESONet | bank transfer | Philippine Clearing House Corporation | live | Same-day batch transfers between Philippine banks with no per-transfer limit, since 2017. | Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas |
| Thailand | PromptPay / Thai banking | instant bank transfer | Bank of Thailand (framework), Thai banks | live | Thailand's instant transfer and QR payment service, by phone number or ID, since 2016. It's grouped with Thai online banking because a broker's "Thai QR" and "Thai internet banking" both reach a Thai bank account the same way. A broker that names either one is shown here as taking PromptPay. | Bank of Thailand |
| Vietnam | NAPAS 247 | instant bank transfer | National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) | live | Vietnam's instant transfer between banks. Money moves in seconds between more than fifty banks. | NAPAS |
| Vietnam | VietQR | bank app payment | National Payment Corporation of Vietnam (NAPAS) | live | The national QR standard for paying from a Vietnamese bank app over NAPAS 247. | NAPAS |
These figures were checked between 27 September 2026 and 16 October 2026. Confirm them with the broker before you open an account.
A rail that’s marked discontinued stays in the table on purpose. When a broker’s page doesn’t name it, you can see the rail has closed and that the broker hasn’t simply left it out. Open banking shows up under every European country because one EU directive licenses it across all of them. The providers each broker connects to still differ, and no regulator ranks them. Polish banks don’t have to offer instant euro transfers until 9 January 2027 for receiving and 9 July 2027 for sending (Regulation (EU) 2024/886). So SEPA Instant isn’t yet a home rail in Poland.
What counts as local
A rail counts as local when people living in the country use it, wherever the operator happens to be based. Evidence of use is the test. In Germany, people pay online with PayPal more than with any bank-backed method, even though PayPal is a Luxembourg company. In Poland, people pay with BLIK, a Polish system, and hardly use PayPal-style wallets at all. Each country’s own central bank supplies both facts. Because PayPal is used this way in many countries, the comparison shows it with the methods that stay the same everywhere, not as local to one.
Cards are left out. Whichever country you happen to live in, a card works everywhere, so it tells you nothing about one broker compared with another. A national card scheme such as Cartes Bancaires also rides on cards that carry the Visa or Mastercard logo. The methods that change from country to country are the only ones this page records, because those are the ones a comparison can get wrong (choosing a provider).
Systems commonly taken for national ones
Payment systems are often thought to belong to the country where they’re most used. Several of the best-known ones don’t. A rail is listed where it’s used, not where its operator is based. If you mix the two up, you’ll check the wrong register when you look into a broker’s funding page.
| System | Often taken for | Where it really comes from |
|---|---|---|
| MyBank | Italian | Pan-European. PRETA owns it, and EBA Clearing controls PRETA. Used in Italy, Spain, Portugal and other countries |
| Satispay | Italian | A Luxembourg e-money institution, Satispay Europe S.A. It started in Italy, and Italy is still its biggest market |
| Klarna, including the former Sofort | German | Swedish. Klarna Bank AB took over Sofort and now offers the same service as Klarna Pay Now |
| SEPA | A way to fund a UK account | Moves euro only, so it can’t fund a sterling account. The UK is inside the scheme’s area for payments in euro |
None of this makes these systems worse. If you need to check something about one, the operator’s own page is where to look. The country’s register won’t hold the information. For most rails, the sources column in the table above directs you to the operator.
Sources
The original documents this page cites, in the order they first appear.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/886 on instant credit transfers in euro, Official Journal of the European Union (EUR-Lex), 2024-03-13
- giropay wurde eingestellt, Deutsche Kreditwirtschaft (girocard)
- Financial Conduct Authority, FCA
- PSR and FCA launch joint call for information on Big Tech and digital wallets, FCA and PSR
- Zahlungsverhalten in Deutschland 2025, Deutsche Bundesbank
- Boletín Económico 2025/T2, artículo 3, Banco de España
- Zwyczaje płatnicze w Polsce w 2023 r., Narodowy Bank Polski
- Sofort is being consolidated into Klarna and discontinued as a standalone payment method, Stripe
- Register of payment institutions, BaFin
- Payment institutions: authorisation, Banco de España
- Payment institutions, Banca d’Italia
- Payment services under PSD2, Banco de Portugal
- Établissement de paiement et prestataire de service d’information sur les comptes, ACPR
- Wero announces first merchants in Germany, EPI Company
- Wero, Banque de France
- Sobre nosotros, Bizum
- About us, MyBank (PRETA)
- Bancomat Pay FAQ, BANCOMAT S.p.A.
- About us, Polski Standard Płatności
- Express Elixir, KIR
- PayU ze zgodą KNF na świadczenie nowych usług wprowadzonych przez PSD2, PayU
- About us, Przelewy24 (PayPro)
- Tpay z rozszerzoną licencją KNF, Tpay
- Dotpay teraz Przelewy24, Przelewy24 (PayPro)
- MB WAY, SIBS
- Sobre nós, SIBS (Multibanco)
- Faster Payment System, Pay.UK
- Regulatory, Open Banking Limited
- Pay by Bank, Open Banking Limited
- Paym closure, Pay.UK
- BPAY, Australian Payments Plus
- PayID, Australian Payments Plus
- Informe anual de pagos minoristas 2025, Banco Central de la República Argentina
- Pix, Banco Central do Brasil
- Transbank — Webpay, Transbank S.A.
- Bre-B, Banco de la República
- PSE, ACH Colombia
- Comprobante Electrónico de Pago (CEP) del SPEI, Banco de México
- Plin, Plin
- Yape, Banco de Crédito del Perú
- BI-FAST, Bank Indonesia
- QRIS, Bank Indonesia
- DuitNow, PayNet
- FPX, PayNet
- National Retail Payment System: InstaPay and PESONet, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
- PromptPay, Bank of Thailand
- NAPAS FastFund 247 with VietQR code service, NAPAS