Digital payments refer to any form of cashless payment or payments conducted without banknotes or coins in either an online or offline environment. This can include mobile payments (digital payments performed with a mobile device), fintech (such companies tend to be at the forefront of payment digitalization), or relatively young trends like buy now, pay later (BNPL) or cryptocurrency. Out of all these cashless options, which developments are noteworthy to know about for the Netherlands?
The Netherlands' biggest payments brands and their bank integration
Two domestic brands form most online digital payments in the Netherlands. iDEAL is one, responsible for an annual transaction volume of 100 billion euros or 113 billion U.S. dollars. ABN Amro's Tikkie - a peer-to-peer (P2P) scheme that uses WhatsApp messages to send money between friends and family - is the second. Key to the success of both is their integration with any bank account in the country: iDEAL and Tikkie are available to everyone, with no additional fees. This low barrier of entry led to an explosive growth of Tikkie over the years. The cooperation between the different banks may also explain why the Netherlands is expected to become Europe's second-biggest real-time payments market in 2027, only behind the United Kingdom.Will wallets take over from debit cards?
The Dutch heavily favor debit cards in physical stores. Contactless (mobile proximity, tap to pay, NFC) debit card transactions formed the majority of POS payments among all age groups in 2022, for example. This familiarity with tap to pay technology may pave the way for wallets. The Netherlands already ranked as one of Europe's most likely countries to use smartwatches for POS transactions. That said, international wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay did not arrive in the Netherlands until 2019 and 2020, respectively. As it stands, Apple Pay adoption in the Netherlands is lower than in the UK, France, Austria, Sweden, or Switzerland. This might mean the transition from cards to wallets could be slower than elsewhere.
