Belgium: digital payment methods| ��ƽ��

Leading payment methods for online shopping in Belgium from 2015 to 2020

Characteristic	Q1 2015	Q1 2016	Q4 2016	Q1 2017	Q4 2017	2018*	Q3 2020
Bancontact (online)	40%	45%	46%	47%	49%	68%	43%
Credit card	53%	51%	50%	49%	47%	42%	25%
PayPal	-	-	25%	-	27%	34%	17%
Bank transfer (online)	-	-	17%	-	17%	-	-
Bancontact (at delivery/pick-up)	-	-	9%	-	10%	-	-
Gift cards and loyalty points	-	-	7%	8%	9%	-	-
Cash (at delivery/pick-up)	-	-	4%	-	4%	-	-
Bank transfer (at the bank office)	-	-	4%	-	3%	-	-
Direct debit	-	-	1%	-	1%	-	-
Other payment method	-	-	1%	-	1%	-	-

Download

Source

Show detailed source information?

Already a member?

Source

Release date

January 2021

More information

Region

Belgium

Survey time period

Q1 2015 to 2020

Special properties

the source is based on continuous data tracking of retail panels and consumers, supplemented with additional research with 4,000 respondents.

Method of interview

Panel survey

Supplementary notes

* The figures have been taken from several publications. The source originally provided two numbers per year, at the end of the first and at the end of the fourth quarter of each year (except in 2015). In 2018, the methodology changed to an annual reporting. Whether this affects the numbers, the source does not mention.

The source does not provide information regarding multiple answering options.

Citation formats

Digital payments in Belgium in 2018 have increasingly been done with Bancontact and PayPal. Up until the beginning of 2017, credit cards were the most popular payment method for e-commerce purchases. In 2018, however, 68 percent of Belgian online shoppers said they used the domestic payment scheme Bancontact. This is supported by a 2018 e-commerce survey in Belgium, in which 30 percent or respondents said they paid online with their debit card, using Bancontact, or with its app.

Bancontact: Belgium’s most important payment brand

Bancontact, until 2016 called Mister Cash, is a payment scheme that only exists in Belgium and uses debit cards from the country’s banks (such as the big banks BNP Paribas Fortis, Belfius and KBC) to pay for goods purchased either online or in a brick-and-mortar store. Because of this structure, the payment card scheme reached the highest market share for both e-commerce and POS in both 2016 and 2017 in the country, ahead of Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

Credit cards and PayPal seem to have more specific uses

Both credit cards and PayPal were still popular options for Belgian consumers, but for different reasons. On average, credit card purchases tended to be more expensive than a purchase done via Bancontact. For PayPal, the source gives no explanation for its increasing use. What could play a part, however, is that online shoppers from Belgium buy more from foreign e-commerce retailers.