Ranking of mobile payment apps in the Netherlands, based on DAU 2018

The Tikkie app of ABN AMRO was the most popular mobile payment app of the Netherlands in 2018, based on the daily active users (DAU) of different apps in each month of 2018. Tikkie is a P2P payment app that uses both WhatsApp as well as iDEAL, a system local to the Netherlands that allows consumers to buy products online whilst using the debit card from any Dutch bank. The Tikkie app reached over five million users in April 2019, partially because everybody, not just ABN AMRO customers, can use it.

Mobile payments versus debit cards in the Netherlands

Smartphone apps for payments in the Netherlands are not as advanced as in countries like Sweden, even though the Netherlands ranks among the European countries that uses contactless payments relatively often. The Dutch prefer to use debit cards for their contactless payments. Also, the Netherlands does not have support for Google Pay and Samsung Pay, with Apple Pay only having arrived in the summer of 2019. The Dutch mobile payments market sees a lot of small competitors, with domestic banks (such as ING or online bank bunq) supporting a payment option in their online banking app, launching a separate app or supporting Apple Pay (ING, ABN AMRO and Rabobank do this). Dutch consumers do use PayPal, but probably for e-commerce purchases abroad as it is not the most popular online payment method in the country.

How about mobile wallets in the Netherlands?

This ranking has a few examples of mobile wallets that are appearing in the Netherlands, such as OK or ICS cards. These apps allow people to save their bank cards or loyalty cards on their smartphone and to use them in a store. Stocard, another example of this, had around two million users in the Netherlands at the end of 2018. Rabobank also launched a similar product: Rabo Wallet. Most mobile wallets in the Netherlands, however, seem to focus on loyalty cards and not on payment cards.