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Metro AG

“Can a wholesale cash-and-carry giant build a sustainable financial-services layer for its HoReCa customer base — or is payments acceptance the realistic ceiling?”

Founded1964
HQDüsseldorf, Germany
IndustryWholesale / Cash & Carry (HoReCa)
The story

METRO is a German B2B cash-and-carry wholesaler serving 17M+ HoReCa customers across 30+ countries. Under its 'Wholesale 360' strategy it built an embedded-finance arm — METRO Financial Services — culminating in a Vodeno-powered decoupled debit card and partnerships with auxmoney/iwoca for SME lending. In March 2025 METRO shut down Metro FS after reaching only 25,000 customers, conceding that retailer-led embedded banking struggles to create compelling value. Embedded finance has now been refocused on payments acceptance under the MPay brand and DISH Pay for hospitality merchants.

Last 12 months
2025-02
2025-03
Product timeline
2018
METRO-NOM migrates SAP Finance Systems to Google Cloud Platform.· infrastructure
2020
Launches GastroFinanz pilot in Germany with auxmoney and iwoca for short-term loans to restaurateurs.· lending
2020
Signs strategic IT partnership with Wipro; spins out METRO Digital from METRO-NOM.· pivot
2022
Partners with Vodeno (METRO Financial Services) to launch BaaS-powered decoupled debit card for HoReCa SMEs.· banking
2025
DISH launches DISH Pay Now, a plug-and-play card acceptance device for hospitality merchants in Germany.· card
2025
Metro shuts down Metro Financial Services subsidiary after reaching 25,000 B2B customers.· pivot
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Metro AG’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
MPay (self-operated)DISH Pay (self-operated)DISH Pay Now (self-operated)
Banking / BaaS
in the full report
Card issuing
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
4 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.