iDEAL 2.0 - a new chapter with Daniel van Delft

We had the pleasure of sitting down with Daniel van Delft, who has succeeded Piet Mallekoote as the new CEO of Currence in February 2021, to discuss the iDEAL 2.0 program and other future developments

Currence is the owner of the Dutch collective payment and digital identity products iDEAL, iDIN, Incassomachtigen, and Acceptgiro. iDEAL is one of the most successful local payment methods in Europe: with 890 million transactions in the past year, and over one billion transactions in the last 12 months, it is the dominant online payment method in the Netherlands. We sat down with Daniel to discuss the iDEAL 2.0 program and other future developments.

Currence recently entered into a partnership with Payconiq: what new capabilities will Currence gain from this partnership and what does this mean for the role of Currence?

In partnership with Payconiq, Currence is in the process of adding additional value through new technological capabilities and, most importantly, building a central access point that allows existing as well as new parties in the iDEAL value chain to connect faster.

From an innovation perspective, it is incredibly important that we have this access point that allows us to invite even more parties into the ecosystem, broadening the current value chain of acquirers and issuers.

As even more players join iDEAL, they add value to the overall iDEAL proposition: possible examples are loyalty features, spread payments, and age checks.

Regarding our role, we will continue to manage the scheme and manage the parties that have joined the scheme. Furthermore, with our partner Payconiq we will manage the technology platform which enables and supports day-to-day transactions.

The launch of iDEAL 2.0 is expected in the beginning of 2022: what will change with the new version? Which customer needs (both on the merchant and the consumer side) are fulfilled by the new version?

In early 2022 we aim to launch the new version of iDEAL, which mainly focuses on offering an improved customer journey by reducing the number of steps for an iDEAL payment. Customers will be able to store personal details(such as a delivery address) that can be passed on to the merchant, with their permission.

Moreover, we want to support the acquirer with additional functionalities to improve the checkout page, and thus improve the user experience.

Even though iDEAL is widely used in the Netherlands, we want to keep developing our offering according to the needs of our customers and the market at large, both on the consumer and the merchant side. While we are not offering purchase insurance or delivery guaranty, we are, however, examining value-added services from a payment perspective.

In this sense, spread payments, recurring payments are all developments that we are pursuing. We want to provide the building blocks as a scheme and technology provider for the acquirer to serve their merchants and for the issuer to serve their consumers. Insured purchases could become a value added service for iDEAL by one or more of our participants.

Age verification is one of our current priorities, but we are also developing business opportunities for additional value-added services. We are interested in how we can support loyalty schemes of large retailers in a more effective way, as well as how we can support larger platform merchants and solve pain points on the consumer and merchant side.

20 of Europe's largest banks have formed the European Payment Initiative (EPI), aiming to create a pan-European payment system. What is the impact on local multi-bank online banking e-payments schemes such as iDEAL?

While 20 banks support this initiative, there is still a long roadmap to follow and implement before this becomes a success. But supposing that EPI will become a success, what would that mean for a scheme like iDEAL, as a dominant ecommerce scheme in only a part of Europe? From an iDEAL perspective this would be interesting, because in the past we wanted to develop iDEAL into an ecosystem for our German, French, and Belgian neighbours. While not successful at the time, we believe that together with the new iDEAL and our partner Payconiq we are able to adjust to specific needs in specific markets, while broadening the scope.

How do you envision the role of Currence in the open finance space?

We believe that a form of strong identification which has a vast reach that is easy to use and easy to couple to data sharing or data enabling options is key to unlocking all possible future digital user experiences. And in essence, a payment is nothing more than exchange of data.

Looking through our Dutch glasses, we have access to almost all Dutch consumers, and this is something that we should use and develop further outside Dutch borders. We believe we have a lot to offer and share with other countries.

Coming back to the strong customer identification, we might not have been the first ones looking at bringing a trusted identity on the web, but we have a very strong tool the iDIN scheme. This scheme is well-positioned to support future use cases, both domestically and internationally.

iDEAL is the dominant ecommerce payment method in the Netherlands, a position that was strengthened further during the pandemic. Do you have plans for international expansion?

After the launch of the new iDEAL we are confident that we are well-prepared to expand into our neighbouring countries, reusing the building blocks of the Dutch platform to suit the specific needs of these other markets.

About Daniel van Delft

Daniel van Delft is the CEO of Currence, the product owner of payment brands iDEAL, Incassomachtigen (e-mandates), Acceptgiro (paper payment requests) and of iDIN, the collective digital identity service of Dutch banks. At Currence, amongst others, Daniel oversees the development and implementation of the new iDEAL, with a completely new and improved API-based infrastructure, easier connection for issuers, acquirers, PSPs and merchants and a platform that allows partners to develop and launch value added services for the iDEAL payment scheme. The introduction of the new iDEAL involves a close technology partnership with Payconiq International and a major expansion of the Currence organisation.

About iDEAL

iDEAL is the most successful omnichannel payment method in The Netherlands. The scheme management of iDEAL is vested with Currence, product owner of iDEAL, iDIN, and eMandates.