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The number of payments and the turnover with iDEAL have increased explosively in the past year, by more than 30% compared to the previous year. In the lockdown month of December, these growth rates even exceeded 40%. The total number of iDEAL payments reached 890 million in 2020, with a turnover of €70 billion.

Almost 85% of all iDEAL payments was approved and completed by customers on smartphones and tablets, in mobile banking apps. Mobile payment requests between friends and family (such as Tikkies, C2C) accounted for 21% of all iDEAL transactions.

An estimated 39% of all iDEAL payments were made in e-commerce, in domestic and foreign web shops (C2B and B2B). The remaining 40% were for paying recurring bills, fines or municipal taxes or for topping up pre-paid balances, among others (also C2B and B2B).

The most expensive purchases with iDEAL were made in March 2020, for an average amount of almost €93, more than €15 higher than the average for all the other months of the year.

Breakthrough for iDEAL QR codes

The use of iDEAL QR codes seems to be breaking through. At the end of 2019, around 100,000 iDEAL payments per month were paid via a QR code. By the end of 2020 the volume had already increased to 450,000 payments via QR per month.

Charities, among others, have embraced the iDEAL QR code. Last year, the Red Cross for example, used iDEAL QR codes on TV, in direct mailings and in advertisements to raise more than €400,000.

Linda Terlage, online fundraiser of the Red Cross: “iDEAL QR codes are an effective and valuable addition to our donation options. Last year we showed an iDEAL QR code on TV in a report on our assistance during the COVID crisis. Viewers could scan this QR code during one minute with their smartphone to donate directly to the Red Cross. In that one minute, viewers donated more than €10,000.” For the implementation and processing of iDEAL QR transactions, the Red Cross works closely with iDEAL payment service provider CM.com.

Logins and online identification with iDIN on the rise

Safe, easy and fast login or online identification with iDIN was possible at 235 different companies and organisations at the end of last year. A year earlier the tally stood at 180 merchants. The number of Digital Identity Service Providers offering iDIN to companies and organisations has further increased from 8 to 12.

The number of iDIN transactions increased by 62% in 2020, to over 7.5 million transactions. In 2017, the first full year that iDIN was available, 488,000 iDIN transactions were processed.

iDIN was mostly used for online identification in COVID year 2020. The proportion of transactions for identification and age verification increased from 55% in December 2019 to 63% in December 2020*. Thanks to iDIN, consumers do not need to present themselves in person at an office or counter to identify themselves reliably with a physical ID card.

iDIN is most commonly used by financial institutions (46%) and by websites for online gaming and gambling (22%), insurances (13%), mortgages (7%), e-commerce (3%) and digital signing of documents (3%).

* In the infographic we show the figures for the whole of 2020: 58% identification, 41% login and
1% age verification