Expanding into the Netherlands?
One thing is clear: payments can make or break your success. Yet, many merchants underestimate the local nuances of Dutch payment habits until it’s too late.
In the Netherlands, customers expect local options like iDEAL, alongside global alternatives like Apple Pay and Klarna. Missing these means lost conversions.
The challenge? Integrating each method manually can tie up your engineers for weeks, which is time you don’t have when entering a new market.
Here’s how to navigate the landscape, offer the right payment methods, and scale faster with minimal technical lift.
In this article, we’ll cover the most important payment methods to offer in the Netherlands, and show you an easier way to add new methods to your payment stack.
Ready to start activating new payment methods with less technical lift? Book a call with the Primer team to learn more.
Why local payment methods matter in the Netherlands
As of 2021, only 4 in 10 Dutch people owned a credit card, and only 28% had actually used their credit card.
When they do use payment cards, the Dutch prefer to pay with debit, but alternative payment methods (APMs) dominate the online landscape.
Getting payment methods wrong can cost you sales. Here are some of the most popular payment methods in the Netherlands and what you need to know about them as a merchant.
iDEAL
iDEAL is an account-to-account (A2A) payment method that lets customers pay directly from their bank accounts. iDEAL is the go-to method for over 70% of online purchases in the Netherlands.
You can’t effectively reach Dutch customers without offering iDEAL.
The good news is that iDEAL is a low-cost, secure payment method. Gateway fees are typically lower than credit cards with no multilateral interchange or scheme fees.
And, as an instant A2A payment method, there’s no risk of chargebacks, helping you reduce fraud exposure.
How iDEAL works
With iDEAL, customers use their IBANs to transfer funds directly to recipients’ IBANs. They can do this using a mobile app, via their bank’s website, or with a QR code for in-person payments.
iDEAL payments are settled instantly and are generally not reversible, meaning there are no procedures for initiating or handling chargebacks. If a customer makes a payment in error or needs to cancel a transaction, they typically need to contact the merchant directly, and merchants are responsible for developing their own refund processes.
By the end of 2027, all iDEAL merchants are expected to be transitioned to Wero, the new pan-European instant payment system. The iDEAL brand name will be phased out, and adjustments will be made on the backend by participating PSPs.
Debit cards
Debit cards are significantly more popular than credit cards in the Netherlands, and are the most common payment method for in-person POS transactions, and are often made via mobile phone or smartwatch.
Until recently, most Dutch debit cards were issued under V Pay (Visa) and Maestro (Mastercard). Both schemes are now being phased out in favour of Visa Debit and Mastercard Debit, which offer broader global acceptance.
SEPA Direct Debit
SEPA, short for Single Euro Payments Area, is a bank-to-bank payment method, used for recurring payments, SEPA allows merchants to pull funds directly from customer accounts.
SEPA payments can take one to three days to settle for cross-border transfers (sometimes up to six). In the Netherlands, iDEAL builds on SEPA to provide a reliable solution for subscriptions and recurring billing. Some PSPs offer workarounds that accept iDEAL for the initial subscription payment, while simultaneously collecting bank details to enable recurring SEPA payments.
BNPL
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) is a short-term loan that is offered to the customer at checkout. It allows the customers to pay for their purchase in installments over a set period of time.
A common BNPL model is ‘pay in 4,’ where the purchase is split into four interest-free installments over six weeks, with the first payment due at checkout and the remaining three collected every two weeks.
For higher-value purchases, however, many providers also offer longer-term plans, such as 3, 6, or 12 months, sometimes interest-free and sometimes with financing charges. The repayment structure typically depends on the purchase amount, provider, and merchant setup. These options are ordinarily displayed at checkout, and Dutch law requires transparency about their terms.
The BNPL market in the Netherlands is expected to grow by 14% annually to reach $10.29 billion in 2025 and $16.4 billion in 2030. That market growth is expected to continue, despite the Dutch government’s attempts to curb its expansion to physical retail. Popular BNPL brands in the Netherlands include Klarna, Riverty (afterpay), PayPal, Billink.
Read more about Buy Now, Pay Later in BNPL: A merchant’s guide.
Digital wallets
A digital wallet is a mobile app that stores customer payment information, including credit, debit, and gift cards. It saves customers from having to type in their details for each purchase, reducing friction at checkout.
The Dutch prepaid card and digital wallet market is forecasted to grow by 6.3% over the next several years, reaching USD $10.54 billion by 2029.
In the Netherlands, the most popular digital wallets include Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. Tikkie, another locally popular digital wallet, is used for making very small peer-to-peer transfers, like splitting bills with friends.
How payment orchestration makes it easier to accept local payment methods in new markets
Adding a local payment method like iDEAL usually means integrating through a payment gateway, which demands engineering time, negotiation, and onboarding. Each option demands engineering time, negotiation, and onboarding.
Even after setup, small changes, like updating the payment method or checkout flow, often require more developer resources.
A payment orchestration platform (POP) simplifies these kinds of complex payment operations by consolidating all your payment services, payment methods, and PSPs into a single control center. With payment orchestration, you can integrate new payment methods, route transactions, and configure checkout experience all through the same unified interface.
With payment orchestration, managing all your local payment methods requires fewer (or no) developer resources, making it easier to scale your payment stack as your business grows. It enables you to optimize costs, boost performance, increase speed to market, and expand internationally with minimal technical overhead.
Read more: Your ultimate payment orchestration platform guide
How Primer lets merchants add and test new Netherlands payment methods
Expanding into a new market used to mean long lead times for payments. If a merchant wanted to support iDEAL in the Netherlands, it often required weeks of engineering work: scoping the integration, building it into checkout, testing, and then maintaining it over time. By the time everything was live, the moment to capture new customers could already have passed.
Primer empowers merchants to take direct control over their payment stack. You can add PSPs and payment methods, route payments, and manage checkout with just a few clicks: no engineering input required.
And instead of guessing whether iDEAL or other local APMs will perform, merchants can plug them in, A/B test adoption, and track the results directly in the Primer dashboard.
Here are three ways Primer makes it easy to add the payment methods you need in the Netherlands (or anywhere else):
Add and manage global and local payment methods for new markets with no engineering bottlenecks
Primer unifies all of your payment providers, gateways, and methods behind one single API integration. This means you don’t have to integrate or maintain separate connections to each payment provider or method.
For instance, to activate iDEAL with Primer:
- Log into your Primer Dashboard
- Select “iDEAL” in the Integrations tab (no code needed)
There’s no engineering investment required to add or maintain your new payment methods. From your Primer Dashboard, you can instantly add and manage all the relevant payment methods you want, including iDEAL, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more, with just a few clicks.
With Primer, you can respond instantly to any market change without any downtime or additional investment. You stay flexible and adaptable to new payment trends as you scale, freeing you up to focus on your customers.
Read more: Alternative payment methods: offer customers more ways to pay
Customize your checkout to give each customer a personalized, localized experience
Once you’ve added all the local payments you want, you can use Universal Checkout to manage the customer experience. Universal Checkout lets you:
- Toggle payments on and off
- Create conditions for displaying payment methods (which ones, in which order)
- Offer each customer a tailored checkout experience
This is critical because long and confusing checkouts are responsible for 15% of abandoned carts. And as many as 69% percent of customers will abandon their cart if they can’t find their preferred payment method.
With Universal Checkout, you make sure each customer sees only the most relevant payment methods. You can also instantly activate or deactivate a payment method when trends, rules, or needs change.
Additionally, you can customize other checkout elements to ensure compliance with all local regulations. For example, you can spell out the terms of a BNPL contract right on your checkout page.
Read more: Not every payment method belongs at checkout—here's how to offer what matters
A/B test payment methods and flows with Observability
Observability makes it simple to test new payment methods and compare their performance. Just use the Split Utility to send 50% of traffic to one payment method and 50% to another.
With 100+ visualizations and 30+ metrics, Observability lets you compare key KPIs like conversions, authorization rates, decline rates, chargebacks, and more.
With Observability, you can study the impact of different payment methods and checkout flows on your business goals. You can test nearly any aspect of payments, including routing, fraud prevention rules, authorization strategies, checkout UX, and fallback strategies.
You might be surprised at the dramatic difference even the tiniest changes can make to your revenue. For example, one ecommerce company added a tiny padlock to their buy button and managed to increase conversions by 3-4%. Others have seen increased conversions by putting local payment methods, like Singapore’s PayNow, at the top of their checkout.
The best part is that with Primer, once you’ve seen the data, you don’t have to rewrite code in order to change course. You can do it all through the same click, drag-and-drop interface, then test again, rinse, and repeat.
Learn more about Observability: Introducing Observability: Get unparalleled visibility across your payment stack
How CodesDirect uses local payment methods to grow across new markets
CodesDirect is a certified reseller of gift cards, prepaid credit, games, software, and other digital products. Based in the Netherlands, they serve customers in Europe, MENA, and worldwide.
The company needed to accept a variety of payment methods, but their processors didn’t give them the flexibility they wanted. Adding niche or “exotic” payment methods required extensive workarounds, leaving them stuck in their gateways’ ecosystems.
After investing significant time and resources integrating new payment methods, they realized the system was unsustainable. Every new connection meant unexpected changes or updates, and more code to write.
Ultimately, CodesDirect realized an infrastructure layer like Primer was the only way to make their payment stack scalable. With Primer, they can add new payment methods instantly, without developer resources. If one PSP doesn’t have the payment method they need, they can source it from another using the same code base. Adding local payment methods across Europe, MENA, and beyond, now takes minutes instead of months.
Since joining Primer, CodesDirect has seen 165% total payment volume growth, using 14 payment methods across 12 regions.
Read the full case study here: How CodesDirect took control of their payments with Primer
Build an easy-to-scale global payment stack with Primer
Expanding into the Netherlands means meeting local expectations, from iDEAL to BNPL to contactless debit. Offering the most familiar methods can build trust, maximize conversions, and minimize declines.
When you partner with Primer, adding local payment methods isn’t just easy, it’s strategic. You get the flexibility to adapt fast, test what works, and find your best fit payment stack for each region.
Book a call to start adding Netherlands payment methods the easy way, with Primer.
