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Contactless payments in the Netherlands grew drastically during the coronavirus pandemic. In the space of four to five months, the market share of contactless card payments reached ** percent in the country, even though the Netherlands ranked as one of Europe’s leading countries in contactless payments before COVID-19. This increase might be attributed to certain age groups having to use contactless payments more often, as there were big differences across generations regarding preferred payment methods in 2019.

The Netherlands: a house of (debit) cards

The market share provided here concerns contactless payments performed with a debit card. The number of debit cards in the Netherlands outweighs that of credit cards, reaching nearly ** million debit cards on a population of ** million in 2019. Debit cards are popular in the country because Dutch banks and retailers pushed the use of debit cards together for years. They aimed that ** percent of all POS transactions of Dutch consumers to be done via debit card at the end of 2018. This target was reached ahead of time as the share of debit card payments in Dutch POS transactions developed at a faster rate than anticipated.

Watch out for wearable payments in the Netherlands

In 2019, the Netherlands accounted for one third of all wearable transactions (payments via smartwatches, rings or jewelry) processed in Europe. Dutch banks increasingly offer options to pay with wearable devices, making the Netherlands one of the European frontrunners in this type of digital payment. Figures on contactless payments done with a smartphone or so-called “proximity mobile payments” are rare, however, for the Netherlands. Google Pay is not available, with Apple Pay arriving only in 2019 and no information being made available on how many people use it. If Dutch consumers use their smartphone for digital wallets, it tends to be for customer loyalty cards. An app that stores loyalty cards onto a customers' smartphone in a digital wallet but also shows discounts of selected retailers called Stocard, for example, had over million users in the Netherlands in 2020.