iDEAL

 

More and more people buy online – books, holidays, DVDs, music downloads, clothes – you can get just about anything on the Internet these days. To make it easier to pay for online products and services, the Dutch banking community has developed the iDEAL online payment method. iDEAL allows online payments to be made using online banking.

 

Advantages
iDEAL offers a number of advantages compared with other payment methods:

  • iDEAL is just as familiar, safe and easy as Internet banking;
  • iDEAL is supported by all the major Dutch banks;
  • Access to Internet banking with one of the participating banks is all that you need to start using iDEAL;
  • Online checking of payment progress and details of transactions.

 

How does iDEAL operate?
You place an order with an online store. When you get to the checkout, you simply indicate that you want to pay using iDEAL. Click on the iDEAL payment button and select your bank. This will take you to your own bank’s website, where details of the payment will be presented to you. Your bank will ask you a number of questions in order to authorise the payment. The amount will be debited directly to your current account and the message will be sent to the online store confirming the payment.

Which online stores participate in the scheme?
You can already make online purchases at participating online stores and pay using iDEAL. iDEAL is now accepted at about 13,000 online stores in the Netherlands, making it by far the most widely accepted payment method for online payments.

 

The iDEAL web stores page contains a list of online stores offering iDEAL payment facilities.

If you would like to know how iDEAL operates, click here to watch our simple demo which tells you all the ‘ins and outs’.

 

Key figures

The number of iDEAL transactions and the number of consumers using iDEAL continue to rise.


  • In 2006 there were more than 4.5 million transactions.
  • In 2007 almost 15 million iDEAL transactions were made.
  • Again in 2008 a sharp rise in the number of transactions was achieved (28 million), an increase of 87%.
  • In 2009 there were more than 45 million transactions, an increase of 63%.

 

More information
For more information about iDEAL, go to www.ideal.nl.