Europe · On request
Payment methods in France
France pays online with cards: Visa and Mastercard, mostly co-badged with the domestic scheme, with Apple Pay on mobile. Pay-by-bank over SEPA Instant and Open Banking (EU, PIS) is the growing alternative for larger tickets. The ACPR authorises payment institutions; Tranzify's clients work through authorised providers from the catalogue.
Market facts
- Currency
- EUR · Euro
- Region
- Europe
- Payments regulator
- Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR)
Payment methods
| Type | Payment methods | share of e-commerce payments |
|---|---|---|
| Cards | Visa | — |
| Cards | Mastercard | — |
| Open Banking | Open Banking (EU, PIS) | — |
| Bank transfers & instant payments | SEPA Instant | — |
| Wallets | Apple Pay | — |
| Wallets | Google Pay | — |
| Wallets | PayPal | — |
| Buy now, pay later | Klarna | — |
| Cards | Cartes Bancaires (CB) | — |
The market
France is a card market: nearly every bank card carries a domestic scheme alongside Visa or Mastercard, and the acquirer decides which network routes the payment, which matters for cost. Apple Pay is the wallet in the French set of the catalogue and the normal way to pay on the phone. SEPA Instant, live since 2017 and mandatory for euro-area banks since 2025, and Open Banking (EU, PIS) bring pay-by-bank to the checkout: instant confirmation, no card data, no chargebacks, which makes it the choice for high-value and cross-border purchases. Cards keep subscriptions and travel, where recurring payments and pre-authorisations have no bank-transfer equivalent.
How Tranzify clients launch
France is in the catalogue on request: a client asks for the French integrations and enables Adyen or Checkout.com for cards and Apple Pay and TrueLayer for Open Banking and SEPA Instant, under its own contracts and licence. Routing by amount, BIN and scheme sends a large ticket to pay-by-bank first and a card-on-file subscription to the acquirer; a declined bank payment cascades to cards on the same page, and two acquirers share card volume by BIN. Every payment is journaled for five years, and the client’s system gets the final status by webhook.
SEPA Instant and pay-by-bank
SEPA Instant doubles as the payout rail: a client pays out to French and other euro accounts through TrueLayer, and the transfer lands in seconds at any hour of any day. Open Banking pay-by-bank is deposit-only; a refund is sent by the provider as a credit transfer to the paying account, so a client never needs the payer’s card for it.
Providers active in France
How to launch here via Tranzify
- 1Onboard with Tranzify and get your network, keys and back office.
- 2Enter your account with the provider in the terminal settings — Tranzify already speaks its API.
- 3Add routing rules: countries, currencies, amounts, BIN ranges, priorities and weights.
- 4Go live. Every payment, callback and retry is in the journal for five years.
Frequently asked questions
Which methods must a French checkout have?+
Does Tranzify need an ACPR licence?+
How do payouts and settlement work in France?+
Other countries in the region
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- ✓ Money never passes through us
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