iDEAL is the benchmark for a pan-European instant payment system

The European Payments Initiative (EPI), a commercial platform backed by 12 European banks, including ING, is acquiring two payment companies, the Dutch-based Current iDEAL and the Luxembourg-based Payconiq International. The goal is to create a pan-European payment solution under a single brand.

iDEAL's expansion outside the Netherlands

Currently, the payment process in Europe includes many disparate systems and is highly dependent on local solutions. EPI wants to develop a single pan-European method of instant payments and for this purpose chooses the iDEAL payment standard. The transition to a single pan-European system has already begun. At the end of 2023, the Tikkie app will be introduced in Germany and France, and then in Belgium*. In the long term, EPI wants to bring other products to the European level, such as electronic identification services, deferred payment and loyalty programs. 

*Tikkie is a payment application that allows you to send payment requests via WhatsApp. The application processes requests through the iDEAL payment platform. Any client of any Dutch bank can send Tikkie requests.

Why choose iDEAL?

iDEAL is the payment standard in the Netherlands for secure and direct online payments from account to account in euro. More than 1,2 billion payments are made through iDEAL annually, including 70% of all e-commerce transactions in the country.

For example, a customer selects their bank through the iDEAL payment button on the website of an online store, after which a request for payment is sent to this bank. Then the buyer confirms the payment, and if there are enough funds in the account, the payment is guaranteed to the online store. The seller can immediately proceed to the delivery of goods, which is very convenient. That is, the main advantage of iDEAL for the seller / service provider is the instant receipt of information that the buyer / customer has made a payment. And the main disadvantage of iDEAL is that this payment instrument does not yet work throughout Europe. Although some foreign online stores are already accepting payments through iDEAL.

Thus, iDEAL has become one of the most indispensable Dutch brands - and will soon be no less useful for users in other European countries. While the transition is in progress, nothing will change for users in the Netherlands.