Today, the Financieele Dagblad reported that McKinsey presented a report to the European Commission, indicating that Dutch and Polish banks lose on their payments business. The Polish lose 700 million yearly because their cost of cash is too high. The Dutch are quite efficient, but lose money as they are for historic reasons unable to price their consumers the real price for the payment instruments.
Still, major Dutch banks make billions of euros profit on other business (mostly outside of the Netherlands). And the average consumer is unable and unwilling to make a difference. So the perception will remain to be for some time, that Dutch banks do make huge profits on payments.
