Pieter Kooistra, managing director of Multicard Netherlands, explained, "We are very pleased with the result of our initial roll‐out to Dutch hockey clubs in July, with more than 50 locations accepting Cashless Betalen and over 150,000 people now using the digital wallet. Interest in Cashless Betalen has spread to other sports and event organizations, the food and beverage industry and the wider market. With this nationwide roll‐out of Cashless Betalen, we are now offering the service to the entire population. Cashless Betalen is an easy, convenient way for anyone to pay securely."
Multicard is marketing Cashless Betalen to merchants, retail centers and other organizations that provide retail services to customers and would benefit from the ability to complete customer transactions more quickly. This includes supermarket, restaurant and retail chains, as well as universities, hospitals, large corporations and sports stadiums – all of which require customers to pay for parking, food and retail items. Because of the high engagement in youth and professional sports in Holland and the accompanying retail activities of local and national sports associations, hockey and soccer clubs are also an important target for the Cashless Betalen roll‐out. For the youth market, Multicard has created payment tokens in the form of colorful wristbands and whimsical rubber creatures.
Multicard is working with Rabobank's 145 branch offices in the Netherlands to share marketing information and to provide training on making mobile payments with Cashless Betalen. Through this effort, Rabobank offices are forming their own promotion teams and presenting Cashless Betalen to local merchants, sports clubs and other organizations. To address retail transactions in hospitals, universities, corporate cafeterias and other environments, Multicard has signed up 15 of the largest food service providers in the Netherlands, who collectively cover 80% of the market.
All merchants use specialized systems to perform and record their retail transactions, and Multicard is working with Holland's major cash register and POS terminal suppliers to ensure that their systems are ready to accept payments made through Cashless Betalen.
"We are very excited about Cashless Betalen and its implications for both consumers and merchants. If widely adopted in Holland, we believe that Cashless Betalen would represent the largest digital wallet community outside Japan in the near term," continued Kooistra. "The ability to make secure cashless payments using your phone offers convenience for consumers and provides merchants with new and more economic ways to attract and connect with customers. After payment, loyalty applications are a natural extension for Cashless Betalen, and we expect that this will add further value."
