iDEAL

iDEAL is an online payment scheme from the Netherlands that lets a shopper pay a merchant directly from a current account, using the shopper's own bank app or online banking to approve the payment. It was introduced in 2005 by the large Dutch banks and became the standard way to pay online in the country, used for web shopping, bills, donations, tax payments and account top-ups.

iDEAL is an account-to-account payment method, not a card scheme. No card number is involved, the money moves as a bank credit transfer, and the merchant receives a confirmation it can rely on within seconds. It is the best-known European example of the bank redirect model and is commonly grouped with other alternative payment methods. Since 2023 the scheme has belonged to the European Payments Initiative, which is folding it into its pan-European wallet, Wero.

The Dutch banks developed iDEAL together so that each bank's customers could pay any participating web shop through a familiar banking screen. Ownership and rule-setting were placed with Currence, a company the banks created to manage the national payment products. Use grew steadily with online shopping, and iDEAL came to account for the majority of Dutch online purchases, well ahead of cards.

The scheme was modernised in the early 2020s with a new technical platform that gave the scheme a central role in each transaction, supported payments started from a phone without first choosing a bank, and introduced an optional profile in which a shopper can save delivery addresses and preferred accounts. In 2023 the European Payments Initiative (EPI), a company owned by a group of European banks and payment firms, acquired iDEAL together with the Luxembourg-based Payconiq International.

At the merchant's checkout the shopper selects iDEAL. On a phone the shopper is switched straight to the banking app; on a computer the page shows a QR code to scan with the phone, or a list of banks. The banking app displays the merchant's name and the amount, already filled in, and the shopper approves with the usual PIN, fingerprint or face recognition. That approval satisfies strong customer authentication because it happens inside the bank's own environment.

The shopper's bank then confirms to the merchant's provider that the payment has been authorised, and the shopper is returned to the shop. The funds move as a SEPA Credit Transfer, increasingly as a SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. The confirmation is the important part for the merchant: once it is received, the scheme rules treat the payment as guaranteed and the shopper cannot reverse it through the bank.

The scheme works with licensed participants on both sides. The shopper's bank is the issuer in iDEAL terms. The merchant contracts with an acquiring bank or, far more often, with a payment service provider that collects iDEAL payments for many merchants and passes the money on. Merchants pay a fixed fee per transaction to their provider, with no percentage charge linked to the order value, which makes the method cheap for large baskets compared with cards.

There is no chargeback right. A shopper who has a problem with an order must resolve it with the merchant, and a refund is a new transfer in the opposite direction, started by the merchant. Fraud therefore tends to take the form of deception: fake web shops, or payment requests sent by criminals posing as buyers or relatives. Banks and the scheme run monitoring and warnings against these scams. Oversight of the participating banks and providers rests with De Nederlandsche Bank and the other national supervisors under the PSD2 framework.

iDEAL spread beyond checkout pages. Dutch banks and apps let individuals send a payment request, a link that the recipient opens and pays through iDEAL, widely used to split bills. Businesses print iDEAL QR codes on invoices and letters, and the first iDEAL payment is commonly used to verify a customer's account and name when signing an electronic mandate for direct debit. Foreign merchants selling to Dutch customers add it through their payment provider as a local payment method, since many Dutch shoppers do not hold a credit card.

EPI launched Wero in 2024, beginning with person-to-person transfers in Germany, France and Belgium and built on instant credit transfers. Its plan is for Wero to become a single European pay-by-bank brand covering transfers between people, online shopping and later in-store payments. iDEAL is being moved into this brand in stages: a period of joint iDEAL and Wero branding at Dutch checkouts, followed by the retirement of the iDEAL name, which EPI has scheduled for the end of 2027. The intention is that Dutch shoppers keep the same way of paying while gaining the ability to pay merchants in other Wero countries, and that merchants elsewhere reach Dutch customers without a separate integration.

• iDEAL
• European Payments Initiative