Project DCA (Debit Card Acceptance) - Betaalvereniging Nederland (2024)

In many Dutch shops you can only pay with a Maestro or V PAY card. Customers with cards from Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit must pay in cash. The Netherlands is increasingly becoming an exception in Europe with its limited acceptance of payment cards. Elsewhere in Europe, customers can usually pay with these Visa and Mastercard debit cards.

Dutch points-of-sale now also regularly get customers who want to pay with a card from Debit Mastercard or Visa Debit. These are mostly foreign customers but also Dutch customers who bank with new online banks such as Bunq, N26 or Revolut.

More and more often, Dutch merchants are confronted with customers from Germany and Belgium in particular, who cannot pay with their Visa and Mastercard debit cards and need to fall back on cash.

Under guidance from the Dutch Payments Association, a project was set up with Mastercard, Visa, banks and PSPs to move forward on the broad acceptance of Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit in the Netherlands.

Dutch banks and PSPs are adapting their procedures and systems so that merchants can flexibly accept Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit cards. They offer the possibility of converting, extending or supplementing existing contracts for Maestro and V PAY for the acceptance of other card types, in particular Visa Debit and Debit Mastercard.

Gijs Boudewijn, general manager of the Dutch Payments Association: "We expect that by the end of this year you can pay with cards from Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit at most Dutch cash registers, just like in all our neighboring countries. That is a good development. Retailers that accept these debit cards will not need to send a growing number of customers to an ATM before they can pay. Foreigners in particular, also from our neighboring countries, use these cards from Debit Mastercard or Visa Debit and more and more Dutch people are getting them too."

In the coming year banks and PSPs will contact merchants who do not yet accept cards from Visa Debit and Debit Mastercard, with proposals to accept these card types.

In due course, the Payments Association will provide stickers and signs for merchants to show customers which types of cards they can use to pay.