Skip to content

Dutch payments in 2018: smartphone banking and contactless take over as paper fades

Published on:

In 2018, Dutch consumers used mobile banking apps more often than internet banking for the first time, and made more contactless payments than payments by inserting a debit card. Fewer than 2 per cent of all credit transfers are still made on paper.

Man in a coffee shop laughs while arranging something via a mobile app with his smartphone and cup of coffee by the window.

In the third quarter of 2018, the use of mobile banking apps on smartphones and tablets surpassed internet banking on laptops and desktop computers for the first time, reaching a share of 52 per cent. An estimated 1.03 billion single electronic credit transfers were made through mobile and internet banking last year, totalling approximately €1.95 trillion. A year earlier, Dutch consumers made 952 million electronic credit transfers. Mobile banking apps accounted for 43 per cent in the final quarter of 2017.

Infographic on the rise of banking apps: they are used as often as internet banking for single credit transfers, their use rose by 28 per cent and only 1.9 per cent of transfers are initiated in writing or by telephone.

A total of 4.37 billion debit and credit card payments were made last year, 12.9 per cent more than in 2017, with a total value of €115 billion. By the end of the year, contactless payments made using debit cards, credit cards, smartphones and wearables—jewellery and watches with a built-in contactless payment chip—accounted for 56 per cent. A year earlier, their share was just under half, at 49 per cent.

“The number of debit card payments rose by almost 13 per cent in 2018 compared with the previous year. The Netherlands has not seen such strong growth in debit card payments since 2001,” says Piet Mallekoote, director of the Dutch Payments Association. “The security and increasing convenience of contactless payments using a growing range of payment instruments, such as smartphones, rings and watches, will certainly have contributed.”

Hardly any credit transfers on paper

Only an estimated 18.8 million paper credit transfer orders were processed in 2018, representing just under 1.8 per cent of all single credit transfers.

View our English factsheet with more facts and figures…

Page one of the 2018 Dutch payments factsheet, with charts on the rise of banking apps, mobile person-to-person payments, average payment amounts and use of the Bank Switching Service.

These facts and figures are based on data from credit card issuer ICS (International Card Services ), AfterPay , transaction processor equensWorldline , Currence , the Dutch Payments Association and De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) .

Related articles