consumer
Savings banks and Payback seal cooperation – start in 2025
Negotiations between the savings banks and the Payback bonus system regarding cooperation have been successfully concluded. photo
© Patrick Pleul/dpa
Millions of Sparkasse customers will soon be able to collect Payback bonus points with their Girocard. The collaboration is now sealed and things should really get started next year.
From 2025, Sparkasse customers will be able to pay directly with their Girocard Collect Payback bonus points. The savings bank finance group and the bonus system have now sealed their cooperation, as a spokeswoman for the German Sparkassen Verlag (DSV) announced when asked.
“With Payback, we have now gained a cooperation partner to offer customers of the savings banks a wide-reaching national bonus program,” said the spokeswoman. “The Sparkasse Card will play an important role, with which users can collect Payback points when paying with participating partners. The launch is planned for 2025.”
As a service provider for the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, DSV conducted the negotiations with Payback. After months of negotiations, it became clear at the beginning of October that the two partners would come together.
Payback users can collect bonus points when shopping at around 700 partner companies such as gas stations, drugstores and supermarkets in order to later exchange them for rewards or vouchers. The so-called Deutschlandcard works in a similar way. In the future, Sparkasse customers will not have to have a separate card from the bonus system with them to collect Payback points: the points will be credited automatically when paying with the Girocard.
Two heavyweights in the market are joining forces
For Payback, which according to the company has around 31 million users in Germany, the collaboration with the savings banks is the first partnership in the debit card sector. With 47 million cards issued, the savings banks are the largest issuer of the Girocard, which many still call the “EC card”.
Bonus systems such as Payback and Deutschlandcard are not without controversy: consumer advocates regularly warn against disclosing too much personal data for a discount and thus becoming a “transparent customer”.
The DSV spokeswoman emphasized the voluntary nature of the new offer: “Customers only use the service if they expressly request it and activate it themselves. Each savings bank decides for itself whether to participate in the program.” According to information from the beginning of October, between 250 and 300 of the 353 savings banks in Germany have signaled that they want to offer their customers the payback function.