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Make sure you have (digital) fallback options in case of a potential card payments failure!

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Many retail businesses (such as store owners) already have one or more digital fallback options in place in case their regular debit card payments are disrupted. Fortunately, there have been hardly any major, prolonged debit card payments failures in recent years; in 2025, there was only one nation wide debit card payments failure that lasted one hour and resulted in fewer than half of all debit card transactions failing. Small-scale malfunctions occur more frequently, for example as a result of a local power or telecom malfunction. However, due to increasing global geopolitical unrest, large-scale power and telecom malfunctions may also occur more frequently. Anyone who has not yet made arrangements would therefore be wise to look into the various fallback options for debit card payments.

Mensen staan in een lange rij met winkelwagens bij de ingang van een supermarkt en wachten om naar binnen te gaan.

Various digital fallback options

Six out of ten retail locations now report that they have implemented one or more measures to address a potential card payments failure. This means that four out of ten locations have not yet taken any measures.

The causes of card payments failures most frequently cited by retail locations are a (local) telecom or internet outage, a malfunctioning payment terminal, and a (local) power outage. While cash payments are possible in such cases, many consumers carry little or no cash on hand. Furthermore, for security reasons, many merchants prefer not to keep large amounts of cash in their registers. For the most commonly cited malfunctions, these simple digital fallback options offer a solution:

Here are some other digital fallback options that can be used in the event of a card payments failure, depending on the cause:

Those who have not yet taken measures for potential card payments failures can use the selection tool for fallback options from the Dutch Payments Association. The Denk Vooruit website for merchants and organizations(opens in new window) (in Dutch) also offers useful recommendations.

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