Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Dutch domestic web-payment method iDEAL outsmarts creditcard as web payment method

Scheme-owner Currence notifies us in a press-release that IDEAL, the home bred Dutch domestic web-payment method, is now more often used as the credit-card for online-payments in the Dutch market. Market research shows that customers find iDEAL easier, faster and safer. So within 1,5 year after its introduction, iDEAL usage now stands at 15 % while credit-cards are used 13 % of the times. We should note that this is quite a nice track record, given that iDEAL was launched only 1,5 years ago.

Currence expects the role of iDEAL to become even bigger in the future. Already in the month March, the total number of iDEAL-payments was 1 million (compared to 3 million for the whole of 2006). So we definitely have a winner here.

Some more information on other payment methods can be found at Planet's website. This shows that other payment methods, often used are:
- bill payment (acceptgiro) via internet banking: 24 %
- credit-transfer via Internet banking: iDEAL: 16 %
- bill payment (acceptgiro) via post: 7 %
- one off direct debit; 7 %
- Paypal: 3 %.

Which does leave another 15 % for obscure/other payment methods (payment via SMS, 0900-phone lines, pre-paid systems/cards etcetera).