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how-to · 3 min read · 2026-05-13

MobilePay for restaurants: how it actually works

MobilePay is the most-used mobile wallet in Finland. Here's what restaurants need to know about offering it through Pisteo, in plain language.

Diner paying with a phone at a restaurant table

About 4.5 million Finns use MobilePay. That’s roughly 80% of the smartphone-owning population. For a Finnish restaurant, accepting MobilePay isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s table stakes. Here’s what you need to know.

What MobilePay actually is, in one paragraph

MobilePay is a mobile wallet, originally launched by Danske Bank, now operated by Vipps MobilePay (a Nordic JV). A diner pays by opening the app, picking the merchant (or scanning a code), and confirming with Face ID or a PIN. Behind the scenes the money moves over the Visa/Mastercard rails as a card-not-present transaction. The diner experience feels like Apple Pay; the merchant experience feels like accepting a card.

How Pisteo offers it

When a diner reaches the pay step on Pisteo, MobilePay shows up as one of the wallet options alongside Apple Pay and card. The diner taps MobilePay, confirms in the app, and the payment lands. There’s no separate merchant agreement to sign with MobilePay; the rails go through Stripe Connect, and your Stripe account treats it the same as any wallet payment.

What you see in the back end:

  • The payment shows up in your Stripe dashboard as a card payment (network: Visa or Mastercard, wallet: MobilePay)
  • Settlement lands in your IBAN same-day or next-day, same as Apple Pay
  • Fees are standard Stripe card-not-present rates: roughly 1.4% + €0.25 for EEA cards, 2.9% + €0.25 for international

Three things restaurants tend to misunderstand

1. There’s no MobilePay-specific merchant fee on top. Some restaurants assume MobilePay charges extra. It doesn’t, when it runs over Stripe rails. The same Stripe fee applies whether the diner paid with Apple Pay or MobilePay.

2. The diner can use MobilePay even if their phone is in another EU country. As long as their phone has a Finnish number and the MobilePay app, geography doesn’t matter. Useful for tourists from Norway and Denmark in particular (Vipps and MobilePay-DK both work).

3. Refunds work the same as cards. One-click refund from Pisteo admin. The money returns to the diner’s MobilePay wallet. No support ticket, no separate flow.

When to enable it

Always. There’s no reason not to. A meaningful share of Finnish guests will reach for MobilePay before they reach for a card; if it’s not there, they default to the slower flow. Try the demo and you’ll see MobilePay enabled by default in the diner pay screen.