Mollie Upgrades Direct Bank Payment System to Speed Up Digital Checkouts
Amsterdam, Monday 5 October 2026
Launched yesterday, Mollie’s upgraded system cuts checkout steps to just three, leveraging its 2026 GoCardless acquisition to challenge traditional card networks and rivals like iDeal.
A Strategic Integration of Open Banking Tech
On 4 October 2026, Amsterdam-based fintech unicorn Mollie officially launched its upgraded ‘Pay by Bank’ payment solution [1][3]. This product marks the first major milestone resulting from Mollie’s acquisition of GoCardless earlier in 2026, directly utilizing the latter’s technology to build a robust, next-generation account-to-account payment infrastructure [1][3]. By establishing direct connections with over 2,500 banks across the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, the system drastically streamlines the consumer journey [1]. It reduces the checkout process to just three steps, compared to the five-step average typically required by competitors [1], representing a reduction of 2 steps in the user flow.
Challenging iDeal and Wero with Irrevocable Payments
In the Netherlands, Mollie’s upgraded system is positioned as a white-label alternative to dominant systems like iDeal and the newly emerging Wero [2]. Crucially, Mollie’s Pay by Bank offers merchants irrevocable payments, deliberately omitting the controversial buyer protection mechanisms that have sparked debate around Wero [2]. Beyond simple transaction processing, the solution is highly versatile, supporting one-off payments, recurring payments, and invoicing [1]. It also incorporates IBAN capture to seamlessly facilitate future direct debits [1]. According to Koen Köppen, CEO of Mollie, the integration was never about simply adding a logo to their portfolio, but rather about building a reliable, invisible foundation that merchants can trust [1].
Ensuring Transparency and European Expansion
To address the inherent variability of open banking reliability, Mollie has simultaneously introduced a public ‘Issuing Bank Performance Page’ [1]. This tool provides real-time transparency regarding the performance and uptime of various financial institutions’ open banking connections [1]. Founded in Amsterdam in 2004, Mollie now serves more than 350,000 businesses across over 30 global markets [1]. While the company is proving the efficacy of its upgraded infrastructure at scale within the Dutch and British markets first, it has confirmed plans to expand the Pay by Bank product to the rest of continental Europe during the first half of 2027 [1].