Mollie Completes GoCardless Acquisition, Creating a 350,000-Business European Group

Mollie has completed its acquisition of GoCardless, creating a European payments and financial services group serving more than 350,000 businesses across over 30 markets.

The combination brings GoCardless's Pay by Bank and Direct Debit network, with coverage across 38 countries, together with Mollie's cards, local payment methods, business accounts and financing. GoCardless will continue to operate under its own brand as "GoCardless, a Mollie company", led by co-founder Hiroki Takeuchi. Koen Köppen, chief executive of Mollie, leads the combined group, which has on-the-ground teams in 12 cities across the EEA.

Mollie confirmed completion on 1 September. The company had signalled the deal earlier in the year, and Global Banking Monitor reported in December 2025 that the takeover was close.

"This is more than two companies coming together. It genuinely expands what our customers can do," said Köppen. "Our commitment to our customers is simple: we will always put their needs first."

Both businesses come into the deal profitable or close to it. Mollie reached EBITDA profitability in 2024 and reported €147m in net revenue for 2025. GoCardless recorded its first EBITDA-positive quarter in the summer of 2025.

For existing customers of either company there are no immediate changes to services, contacts or contracts, with integration to be phased.

The bank payments question

The strategic logic is fragmentation. A typical European business runs cards with one provider, bank payments with another, its accounts with a bank and its financing somewhere else again. Mollie's argument is that those pieces belong under one roof.

That is a familiar pitch. What makes this version more credible than most is the Direct Debit and Pay by Bank asset. GoCardless has spent a decade building account-to-account collection at a scale few European players can match, and account-to-account is the piece card acquirers have consistently failed to build themselves.

For banks, the combination is worth watching on two fronts. It creates a payments group with both card and bank rails and an appetite for the business banking relationship, which puts it in more direct competition with transaction banking propositions aimed at SMEs. And it consolidates one of the larger independent Pay by Bank networks in Europe at exactly the point where open banking payments volumes are becoming material.

It also stands out in a year when European fintech M&A has otherwise been thin, with EMEA investment down to $11.3bn in the first half.