Mollie

Mollie is an Amsterdam-based payment service provider that lets businesses accept and manage payments through an API and a centralised dashboard. Its product set spans online payments, in-person/point-of-sale payments (including a dedicated 4G/Wi-Fi terminal, a tap-to-pay app for existing devices and Tap to Pay on iPhone), a conversion-oriented checkout, recurring/subscription billing, payment links, invoicing, embedded payments for platforms (Connect), outbound payments, acceptance and risk/fraud tooling, business accounts, cards, reporting and Capital, a lending product with flexible repayments [0][1].

The platform supports local and international payment methods such as credit and debit cards, PayPal, SEPA bank transfer, iDEAL, Wero, Bancontact, Postepay and Przelewy24, and connects to merchants' stacks via prebuilt ecommerce plugins and client/server libraries for languages including JavaScript, PHP, .NET and Python [0][5]. Mollie was launched in 2004 by Adriaan Mol, initially as a text-messaging software layer, moving into payments in 2006 after he found Dutch bank offerings inadequate and hired an engineer to build a payments API [5][6][7]. The company has said it intends to expand beyond payments into broader financial services for SMEs, naming working capital, card issuing and corporate cards, expense management and business banking as focus areas [5][6].

As of the sources, Mollie states it powers over 250,000 businesses and positions itself as a partner for European merchants of all sizes [0][1].

Founding story

Adriaan Mol registered the Mollie domain at age 14 as a sandbox for online experiments and formally founded the company in 2004 at age 18 instead of attending university, initially building software to make it easier for companies to send text messages. In 2006 he needed to integrate a payment method, found Dutch bank offerings poor, and hired his first employee, engineer Bastiaan Peters, to build a better payments API — the origin of Mollie's payments business. Mol's nickname is 'Mollie', which gave the company its name [6][7].

Business model

Mollie sells payments acceptance and adjacent financial services directly to businesses, publishing transparent pricing and operating without lock-in contracts; it layers additional products such as business accounts, cards, invoicing, terminals and Capital lending on top of the payments relationship [0][5].

Sources describe transaction-based payment processing with simple and transparent pricing and no lock-in contracts, complemented by financing (Mollie Capital) and business account/card products; specific fee levels are not stated [0][5].

Traction

Mollie states it serves over 250,000 businesses [0][1]. In 2021 it reported more than 120,000 monthly active merchants (up from about 100,000 in 2020), 400-500 new customers added per day, more than €10bn processed in 2020 and a track to exceed €20bn in 2021 [5][6]. By mid-2023 it reported over 700 employees and 150,000 SME and larger customers [7].

Latest developments

Mollie has announced a commitment of €350m over five years to European expansion outside the Netherlands and the UK, completing its EEA footprint with launches in Croatia and Iceland; the Iceland launch was highlighted by a partnership with local company Tixly. Other recent country launches include Slovakia, Bulgaria, the Baltics, Romania and Greece. Product-side, the company promotes Tap to Pay on iPhone, Mollie Tap, Mollie Business Accounts (with a 2% cashback promotion) and consumer research such as a study of French summer-sales budgets [0][2].