Local and alternative payment methods
In every market, something is already the default. Rarely your card form.
Wallets, bank redirects and local schemes, switched on where they change the outcome — so entering a market stops meaning available and starts meaning selling.
The premium claim
The revenue that leaves without saying goodbye
A missing payment method never files a complaint. The customer reaches the last screen, doesn't recognise a single option, and closes the tab. Nothing breaks, no alert fires, and the loss lands in a number nobody attributes correctly.
Abandonment you can't see
Card decline rates are visible and get attention. A shopper who never enters card details produces no decline at all — just a gap in a funnel that looks normal.
Defaults are cultural
In some markets people reach for a bank app before a card. That habit is decades old, and no checkout redesign will argue a shopper out of it.
Meet the market where it is
Adding the two or three methods a country actually uses is the shortest distance between being present in a market and earning revenue from it.
Expansion
New markets without a rebuild every time
The reason expansion stalls is rarely strategy. It's that every new country arrives as an integration project, a compliance review and a reconciliation problem — and someone has to sponsor all three.
- New methods enabled on the existing integration, not a new one
- Checkout adapts per market instead of showing everything to everyone
- Settlement and reporting stay in one place as coverage grows
- A method you switch on can be switched off again if it underperforms
Cost of a new market
0 rebuilds
Method families
Four shapes, not a hundred logos
Long method lists are a marketing artefact. What matters operationally is which of four behaviours a method has, because that determines your refunds, your disputes and your settlement timing.
- Wallets — fast checkout, stored credentials, card economics underneath
- Bank redirects and A2A — authenticated by the bank, few disputes, quick confirmation
- Local schemes — the domestic default, often mobile-first, high trust
- Vouchers and prepaid — reach for buyers without cards or bank access
What actually differs
0
How we choose
Your traffic decides the mix, not our catalogue
Switching on every available method is the lazy version and it makes checkout worse. Three well-chosen options outperform eleven.
Read the traffic
Where your buyers already come from, where they drop, and which markets you're serving by accident rather than on purpose.
Shortlist per market
Two or three methods per country, chosen for share and for how they behave operationally — not for how the logo looks.
Switch on and measure
Enable, watch completion per market, and remove what doesn't earn its place on the page.
Coverage
Where we are, and where we're going
We publish this honestly, including the parts that aren't live yet. Availability is confirmed per merchant during onboarding.
| Market | Default method | Family | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland | BLIK | Local scheme | LIVE |
| Poland | Przelewy24 | Bank redirect | LIVE |
| Austria | EPS | Bank redirect | LIVE |
| Cross-border | paysafecard | Voucher / prepaid | LIVE |
| Netherlands | iDEAL | Bank redirect | ROADMAP |
| Germany | Bank redirect | Bank redirect | ROADMAP |
| Czechia | Bank transfer | Bank redirect | ROADMAP |
Questions
The ones people actually ask
Do local methods replace cards?
No, they sit alongside them. Cards remain the backbone for most cross-border business. Local methods win the share of a market that was never going to type a card number in the first place.
How many methods should we show at checkout?
Fewer than you think. Beyond three or four visible options, choice starts costing you completion. The right answer is a short list that changes by market, not a long list that never changes.
How do refunds work across different methods?
It varies by family, which is exactly why we group them that way. Bank redirects usually refund to the originating account, vouchers often can't be refunded to source at all. We set expectations per method before you enable it.
Can we add a method that isn't on your list?
Ask. Some are a configuration change, some are a partner conversation, and some are genuinely not available to us today. You'll get told which of the three applies rather than a vague maybe.
Does adding methods mean a new integration?
No. Methods are enabled on the integration you already have. That's the whole point of putting them behind one gateway.
Get started
Tell us which markets you're in. We'll tell you what you're missing.
Send us where your traffic comes from and where you want to sell next. You'll get a shortlist per market and an honest note on what we can support today.
Our Polish payment institution licence covers Polish payment methods. Any non-Polish method is offered as a technical connection only — it does not constitute a payment service provided by BergoPay under that licence, and the underlying service is delivered by the respective method or scheme provider.