By Wolf Kring

YNOT – Sometimes referred to as Holland — which actually constitutes only a part of the country — the Netherlands is one of Europe’s most productive economies and one of the world’s top ten exporting countries.

Despite the country’s relatively small size, the Netherlands has the 16th largest economy in the world; its main industries consist of shipping, foodstuffs, trade and banking. The country also has the lowest unemployment rate within the European Union, and according to UNICEF, it is the best place in the world to raise children.

When the Netherlands introduced the Euro in 2002, it became one of the 17 nations that form the beleaguered Eurozone.

According to Internet World Stats, 88.3 percent of the Dutch have access to the internet. That’s 14.8 million people in a population of nearly 17 million — and a lot of online purchasing power.

To pay for goods and services online, the Dutch prefer an interbank online payment method called iDEAL. Introduced in 2005 by Dutch banking association Currence, iDEAL allows online shoppers to authorize secure payments directly from their bank accounts, in essence “pushing” funds to the beneficiary instead of requiring the beneficiary to “pull” the money. Since iDEAL transactions are authorized by the account holder before any money changes hands, they are virtually free of chargebacks or repudiations. Participating banks include ABN AMRO, ASN Bank, Friesland Bank, ING Bank, RaboBank, Regiobank, SNS Bank, Triodos Bank and Van Lanschot, covering the vast majority of the Dutch market.

In December 2011 alone, a total of 8,864,549 iDEAL transactions took place.

As with their neighbors in Germany, the Dutch are loath to rely on credit cards. Penetration remains relatively low in the Netherlands, with credit cards used primarily for travelling and emergencies instead of day-to-day transactions.

Online merchants that resolutely stick to Visa and MasterCard are depriving themselves of potential income from Dutch consumers who would like to pay, but can’t. The implementation of iDEAL on a payment page will hand a merchant an effective, trusted payment method that has become the de facto standard for transferring money online in a market that remains largely untapped outside Europe.

Wolf Kring is president and chief executive officer of 2000Charge, an alternative payment processor operating in the adult entertainment space since 1999. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the company operates worldwide and has global reach in the European Union, Canada, Latin America and Asia Pacific in addition to the U.S.