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Estimated €150 billion in turnover from electronic payment methods in 2017

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Estimated turnover from electronic payment methods in the Netherlands in 2017, at points of sale and online – including debit card payments, credit cards, iDEAL, PayPal, AfterPay and the Digital Mandate Service – totalled around €150 billion. Debit card payments alone (in Dutch) accounted for €100.6 billion last year. The number of point-of-sale transactions made by debit card and credit card rose by 7.7 per cent to 3.93 billion payments. The number of online payments made with iDEAL (in Dutch) and credit cards increased by as much as 30.7 per cent last year, to 455 million transactions.

Hand holds a smartphone against a payment terminal for a contactless payment, while an employee holds the device in a professional environment.

Credit cards gain ground in online entertainment

Credit card use increased by 10.2 per cent in 2017 to almost 160 million transactions. Total credit card turnover exceeded €12 billion. The strongest growth in turnover, at 14.1 per cent, came from credit card payments for online entertainment services such as Netflix and Spotify. Turnover in the travel sector, particularly hotels, rose by 8.5 per cent last year.

Half of debit card payments are contactless

The number of debit card payments rose by 7.8 per cent last year to 3.84 billion transactions. The share of contactless payments (in Dutch) in the total number of debit card payments more than doubled in 2017, from 24 per cent at the end of 2016 to 49 per cent at the end of 2017. More than one third of all contactless payments are made in supermarkets. Hospitality follows with a share of more than 15 per cent, while unattended vending machines account for more than 7 per cent.

The strong growth of contactless payments in the Netherlands drove a sharp increase of more than 16 per cent in the share of relatively small debit card payments of up to €5. Two thirds of all debit card payments are for amounts of €20 or less.

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