Card payment disruptions

What is a card payment disruption?

Debit card payments are the most common payments at points-of-sale in the Netherlands. Four out of five payments are electronic and consumers expect they can always use their debit card. Yet sometimes there is a card payment failure, a temporary disruption in card payments due to:

• a technical problem with the payment terminal,
• a problem with the data connection of the payment terminal or
• a malfunction at a bank or payment service provider.

As a result, debit card payments can temporarily not be processed, in one shop, in one area or throughout the country.

Impact of card payment disruptions

Most card payment failures are local and can be quickly resolved but sometimes a nation wide failure lasts longer. Although these disruptions are rare, they can have a major impact on business operations and consumer experience. Therefor, business owners should be prepared and know about possible alternatives.

To quickly identify and share disruptions, the payment sector maintains the CONNECT platform: a reporting system where participants can submit and exchange information about planned and unplanned payment disruptions with each other.

How businesses can prepare for payment disruptions

By taking technical and organisational measures, entrepreneurs can offer falback payment options and limit the impact of disruptions.

Betaalvereniging Nederland offers practical advice via PIN.NL(opens in new window) (in Dutch) and encourages businesses to actively prepare for payment disruptions.

Examples of fallback options

In the event of a card payment failure, it is important for retailers to have a good fallback option. Paying in cash may not be the best option, as many consumers carry little or no cash. Alternatives include:

• mobile requests-to-pay with QR codes, via a separate instant payments infrastructure;
• iDEAL / Wero payments at points-of-sale, also via a separate A2A payments infrastructure;
• a spare POS terminal with a different data connection and transaction processor;
• a contract for temporary offline card payments, without data connection.

Businesses owners can use our decision tool for (digital) fallback payment options(opens in new window) (in Dutch) to determine which solutions best suit their business.

Role of the Payments Association

The Dutch Payments Association works with banks, payment service providers and trade organizations to keep payments highly reliable. We collect data on disruptions, we analyse trends and advise on fallback options.

Our PIN.NL website provides practical information and support for businesses that want to prepare for card payment failures.