FD reported that last year the debit card was increasingly used for low value payments. On average the Dutch paid € 44,22 in 2006 for each transaction (which was 44,61 in 2005). Meanwhile the number of payments rose with 8,8 % to 1,451 billion in 2006. Meaning that the total amount spent with debit-cards decreased. Meaning that the debit-card eats up the low value segment.
At the same time, the e-purse payments increased to 164,6 million payments (with an average transaction amount of 2,68 euro). Those payments are really the niche/vending payments. So they have their own spot in the market and will not be eaten up by the debit-card until such time that we have EMV-cards that can work in vending segments just as well.
