Since the NL IBAN signals with which bank you are banking anyway I can “disclose” that I am banking at INGbank in the Netherlands. Earlier this year this bank send me a new debit card with “contactless” payments activated.

As I have earned a relevant part of my business revenue in payments related projects over the years, and my very first project in this domain towireless-payment be about new payment types based on contactless for the public transport sector I am maybe a little bit more sensitive to these type of developments. Everywhere I encounter a contactless enabled POS terminal I will happily draw my debit card and try it out.

My findings are quite odd and can statistically leave room for one conclusion only: up till now “contactless payments are not used by Dutch payers at all”.

Everywhere, and literally every time I use the facility the employee behind the counter is total stunned that this capability exists and is actually operational at his POS. Maybe 25% knew the facility was present the others did not even know it existed. If I may use the explanations of these counterparts as survey input I have been the first to use it at every location without a flaw since early this year.

The funny thing is that the first time I used it myself was in Portsmouth (UK) paying for a pub meal. And again there I was the first to use it… At least the person helping was aware of it which proved to be an exception.

Only once I had a negative experience: a POS returned a prompt saying something that I had not enough money available or about limits or something while the banking app proved at the spot this to be utter nonsense. I am not entirely sure what the exact text was which was displayed at the main LCD screen it self for all to see (including my kids, personal of the restaurant and a bystander who wanted to know why I was so enthusiastic in showing how you could pay contactless), for I got a serious anxiety attack by the prompt. Just presenting the card a third time proved the remedy…

I have encountered  POS enabled for contactless mostly in restaurants; from small ones in the big city to trendy ones in small towns in the south, east and west parts of the Netherlands (NB I just did not travel up north). I encountered one or two POS that could have contacless but were not activated as such. POS penetration is developing pretty slow too for I have been able to use contactless for only a small fraction of all the debit card payments I have done over the last half year. (NB yet an other proof that if payment method is reliant on POS terminal of merchant this is a severe barrier for uptake of the new service.)

It is an odd experience to be the first  to use contactless debit card at every capable POS again and again.

Update: Correction: contactless payments are used ….. but only by young people!