PIN (nationale betaalpas)DiscontinuedThe Netherlands is the only large Western European market to have voluntarily given up its domestic card scheme. That explains its current reliance on Mastercard for debit and the strategic importance of iDEAL, and now Wero.Currence / Interpay · since 1990Brand discontinued in 2012 in favor of Maestro, then Debit Mastercard
Global registry · Europe · Western Europe
Netherlands Payment systems
9 systems listed.
CurrencyEuro (EUR)
RegulatorDe Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) / AFM
Leading payment methods
iDEAL (A2A)Cards (debit)WalletsBNPL
E-commerce shares
Account-to-account · 62%Cards · 12%Wallets · 12%Buy now, pay later · 9%Other · 5%
iDEAL. Launched by Dutch banks in 2005, iDEAL is the textbook case of account-to-account payment: about 70% of Dutch e-commerce and more than 1.2 billion transactions a year. Acquired by EPI in 2023, it is gradually migrating to Wero.
iDEAL transactions>1.2B a year
iDEAL share of e-commerce≈70 %
In-store cash share≈20% of transactions (DNB)
The only major European market where cards play a marginal role online. In stores, Maestro debit has been replaced by Visa and Mastercard debit. Cash is in steep decline (≈20% of checkout transactions).
IBAN · Netherlands
18 charactersSEPA area86 bank codes1,714 BIC codes
- Total length
- 18 characters
- Bank code position
- 5–8
- BBAN structure
4!a10!n
Structurally valid example
NLcountry code91check digitsABNAbank0417164300account
NL91 ABNA 0417 1643 00
Learn about this market. The guides and courses that cover it.
Merchant, acquirer, PSPPayment regulationCentral banks and payment infrastructuresAgents, distributors, and banking-as-a-service: who is liable for whatPayments in the BalkansPayments in the Baltics and FinlandAccepting payments in Germany, Austria, and SwitzerlandAccepting payments in Spain and PortugalChoosing a jurisdiction for your payment institutionAccepting payments in the Netherlands and BelgiumAccepting payments in the NordicsAccepting payments in Poland and Central Europe
Card schemes
Instant payments
iDEALEurope’s most successful pay-by-bank scheme and the benchmark for every A2A project. Its planned phaseout in favor of Wero is the defining event in the Dutch market.Currence iDEAL B.V. (subsidiary of EPI Company since April 2023) · since 2005About 62% of Dutch online spending and 71% of online purchases in 2023; migration to Wero from 2026, with all Dutch issuing banks connected to Wero in October 2026, and decommissioning scheduled for December 31, 2027 (EPI Company, 2026)
Clearing and settlement
equensWorldline CSMPan-European CSM of Dutch and German origin, one of the few private companies clearing for several national banking communities.Worldline (equensWorldline)
Incassomachtigen (e-mandate)SEPA direct debit mandate signed through bank authentication, the only scheme of its kind rolled out at national scale.Currence · since 2016
Wallets
ChipknipDiscontinuedDutch electronic purse, for years the most used in Europe by volume, killed off by contactless debit.Currence / Dutch banks · since 1996Discontinued on January 1, 2015
TikkiePayment request sent as a link over WhatsApp and paid through iDEAL: the user layer that turned iDEAL into a P2P tool without ever building its own rail.ABN AMRO · since 2016More than 170 million payment requests a year worth €8.5 billion, about 37,000 business users, and an average amount of €50 (Dutch Wikipedia, 2025 data, not cross-checked with ABN AMRO)
Acquiring and processing
AdyenAn acquirer with a banking license, connected directly to the card schemes and to local methods (iDEAL, Bancontact, Bizum, Multibanco, and others). Merchants often reach the region’s domestic schemes through Adyen.Adyen N.V. (a licensed bank in the Netherlands) · since 2006
Other
iDINIdentification and age verification using online banking credentials; an identity building block that several Dutch payment journeys depend on.Currence · since 2016
AcceptgiroDiscontinuedPreprinted credit transfer slip attached to invoices, used for more than 40 years in the Netherlands. Currence announced its full phase-out at the end of 2021, effective mid-2023. A creditor who still finds an Acceptgiro in an old collections file should know the instrument no longer exists: payments are now collected by SEPA direct debit or iDEAL QR.Currence (brand owner; the market rules and documentation are maintained by the Dutch Payments Association (Betaalvereniging Nederland))3 million forms processed in 2022, compared with several tens of millions at the peak (Betaalvereniging Nederland, knowledge base, 2023)