Consumer spending change in the Netherlands due to coronavirus 2020

An overview on how many payment transactions were done at, for example, supermarkets or restaurants reveals how much COVID-19 changed Dutch consumer behavior. Measures from the Dutch government already left visible marks on parts of the Dutch economy on both March 19th and March 20th, 2020, even before a recession might hit later in the year. Especially out-of-home leisure activities, like visiting a restaurant or going to a theme park, saw huge changes in the number of recorded debit card transactions, decreasing by over 80 percent to a comparable day in 2019. Other retail stores, however, saw a notable increase. DIY stores, toy shops and supermarkets especially, saw a surge in transactions.

Debit card transactions to measure consumer behavior?

ING, the source of this overview, tried to provide a first glimpse into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer behavior. It did so by looking at data from what is the most commonly used payment method of the Dutch. In the Netherlands, consumers do not always use cash money or credit cards for their retail payments. In 2018, for example, just 0.03 billion of all 6.84 billion payment transactions in hotels, restaurants, shops, bars, market stalls, petrol stations and service providers were done with a credit card. Debit cards, on the other hand, accounted for more than half of all payment transactions that year. The Netherlands also had a higher market share for contactless payments than most other European countries.

Are these numbers representative for the whole country?

One should keep in mind that the numbers shown here are based only on transactions done with debit cards from ING. Based on assets, ING was the Netherlands’ biggest bank ahead of Rabobank and ABN AMRO and is considered the market leader in the country. For a more complete picture on the Netherlands, one could argue that compatible data from Rabobank and ABN AMRO would have been ideal. These were not yet available. Some industry sources, however, already confirmed that the impact of the coronavirus was severe. The Dutch hospitality sector predicted a revenue loss of nearly 250 million for restaurants alone, for example.