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Availability of banking services in 2019 and 2020

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2020 was an unusual year for several banking services. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the number of debit card transactions fluctuated considerably.

Bar chart 'Availability of banking services in 2019 and 2020' with availability for each service around 99.8–100%. The bars show minimal differences between 2019 and 2020 for debit card payment chain, internet banking, mobile banking and iDEAL for consumer and corporate banks. All services remain available almost continuously, with slight increases for internet and mobile banking and a small decrease for iDEAL for corporate banks.

Over the full year, the total number of transactions nevertheless grew slightly, by 3.3%. Availability of the payment service remained high at 99.89%. There were two major outages, half the number recorded in 2019. One outage was caused by the transaction processor, while the other involved problems at the interface between the telecoms provider and the retail network.

DDoS attacks

The availability of internet banking and mobile banking (banking via an app) was clearly better in 2020 than in 2019. DDoS attacks on banking systems are a major source of disruption, and they were more severe in 2020 than in the previous year. Banks took both collective and individual measures to counter them. Individually, all banks contracted external DDoS mitigation service providers, enabling them to mitigate DDoS attacks after a short time. Collectively, banks and the Dutch Payments Association made agreements with the telecoms sector, government bodies and other parties in the Anti-DDoS Coalition(opens in new window) . In this public-private partnership of 17 parties, agreements were made on sharing knowledge and experience. Although DDoS attacks remain a serious threat to banking services, the measures taken appear to be effective, as shown by the increased availability of internet and mobile banking. The duration of major outages caused by DDoS attacks also declined.

iDEAL above the standard

Use of iDEAL(opens in new window)  grew by more than 30% in 2020. Despite this exceptionally strong and higher-than-expected growth, iDEAL’s availability remained above the statutory standard of 99.88% during prime time almost throughout the year. Banks and transaction processors invested in infrastructure in good time to accommodate the rapid growth. The anti-DDoS measures mentioned above also contributed to iDEAL’s high availability.

The chart below shows the availability of these banking services in 2019 and 2020:

Chart comparing the availability of debit card payments, iDEAL, internet banking and mobile banking in 2019 and 2020

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