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Germany’s Antitrust Regulator Opens Probe Into PayPal

By  |  January 23, 2023

Germany’s antitrust watchdog said Monday it had launched an investigation into PayPal to examine whether the US online payment giant was using its dominance to restrict competition.

The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) said it would examine whether the conditions set out in PayPal’s terms of use amount to a possible “hindrance of competitors and restriction of price competition”.

Paypal is Germany’s leading online payments service but also its most expensive, the regulator said.

“We will now examine what market power PayPal has and to what extent online retailers are dependent on offering PayPal as a payment method,” FCO president Andreas Mundt said in a statement.

Related: Polish Competition Regulator Probes PayPal

The charges paid by sellers to use PayPal’s service start at 2.49 percent of the payment amount plus 0.35 euros per transaction.

According to the FCO, traders are not allowed to offer their goods and services at lower prices if customers choose a cheaper payment service, nor may they express a preference for payment methods other than PayPal.