Raynor de Best
Research expert covering finance, insurance & real-estate, internet & e-commerce
Get in touch with us nowBiggest digital payment methods in Belgium 2015-2018
Digital payments in Belgium in 2018 have increasingly been done with Bancontact and PayPal. Up until the beginning of 2017, credit cards were the most popular payment method for e-commerce purchases. In 2018, however, 68 percent of Belgian online shoppers said they used the domestic payment scheme Bancontact. This is supported by a 2018 e-commerce survey in Belgium, in which 30 percent or respondents said they paid online with their debit card, using Bancontact, or with its app.
Bancontact: Belgium’s most important payment brand
Bancontact, until 2016 called Mister Cash, is a payment scheme that only exists in Belgium and uses debit cards from the country’s banks (such as the big banks BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius and KBC) to pay for goods purchased either online or in a brick-and-mortar store. Because of this structure, the payment card scheme reached the highest market share for both e-commerce and POS in both 2016 and 2017 in the country, ahead of Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
Credit cards and PayPal seem to have more specific uses
Both credit cards and PayPal were still popular options for Belgian consumers, but for different reasons. On average, credit card purchases tended to be more expensive than a purchase done via Bancontact. For PayPal, the source gives no explanation for its increasing use. What could play a part, however, is that online shoppers from Belgium buy more from foreign e-commerce retailers.
Bancontact: Belgium’s most important payment brand
Bancontact, until 2016 called Mister Cash, is a payment scheme that only exists in Belgium and uses debit cards from the country’s banks (such as the big banks BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius and KBC) to pay for goods purchased either online or in a brick-and-mortar store. Because of this structure, the payment card scheme reached the highest market share for both e-commerce and POS in both 2016 and 2017 in the country, ahead of Visa, Mastercard and American Express.
Credit cards and PayPal seem to have more specific uses
Both credit cards and PayPal were still popular options for Belgian consumers, but for different reasons. On average, credit card purchases tended to be more expensive than a purchase done via Bancontact. For PayPal, the source gives no explanation for its increasing use. What could play a part, however, is that online shoppers from Belgium buy more from foreign e-commerce retailers.
