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iDEAL

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About

iDeal Logo

iDEAL is an online payment method in the Netherlands. This payment method allows shoppers to use direct online transfers from their bank account to purchase goods online. Participating banks change from time to time, but may include: ABN AMRO, ASN Bank, bunq, Friesland Bank, ING Bank, Knab, Rabobank, RegioBank, SNS Bank,Triodos Bank and Van Lanschot.

iDEAL holds over 50% of the market share in the Netherlands.

Payment Flow

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Video Walkthrough of the iDEAL Shopper Journey

Source: https://www.ideal.nl/en/payee/video/

Properties

Type of Payment
Online
Chargebacks
Yes, as payments are not guaranteed. However, there is a very **low** risk of chargebacks since it is a real-time transfer.
Consumer Currency
EUR
Consumer Country
Netherlands (see FAQ below)
Expiry Period
URL Expiry - The URL returned for online payment methods is generally only valid for a few minutes.
Recurring Payments
No
Partial Payment
No
Refunds
Yes. This payment method has a refund period of 180 days.

FAQ

  • iDEAL works on all mobile devices that have an internet connection and web browser.
  • iDEAL is supported by all browsers that support online banking. That includes the most frequently-used browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox.
  • The Shopper must have a Netherlands-based billing address

Best Practices

The shopper journey should generally follow the guidelines below:

  1. Shopper selects iDEAL as payment method.
  2. Shopper selects their preferred bank on the merchant site.
  3. Merchant creates a Reach order and is returned an iDEAL authentication URL .
  4. Reach creates an iDEAL transaction, which triggers behind-the-scenes communication between an acquiring bank and the shopper's bank.
  5. The Shopper is redirected to her bank to login and confirm payment.
  6. Reach sees that the iDEAL payment has completed (shopper's bank has sent guarantee of payment to the acquirer's bank).
  7. Shopper is redirected back to merchant confirmation page for receipt of payment. Merchant can proceed to ship goods.

Technical Considerations

  • It's important to remember that there is no pre-authorization on iDEAL transactions.
  • iDEAL does not have 100% uptime. iDEAL availability is accessible on the iDEAL Availability Dashboard
  • The shopper's bank must be specified in the Issuer field of the /checkout request API call. The list of acceptable banks is returned from getPaymentMethods.
  • Include an IssuerId (a list of Issuers is returned by getPaymentMethods and the customer can choose which they would like) and RedirectUrl in the /checkout request in order to get the result of the /checkout request.
  • The Shopper must have a Netherlands-based billing address

Testing

  • iDEAL requires some extra effort in order to test, but since it is an online payment method, no special values are needed to test the checkout process. Contact Reach's technical support team when you're ready to start testing.
  • Include an IssuerId (a list of Issuers is returned by getPaymentMethods and the customer can choose which they would like) and RedirectUrl in the /checkout request in order to get the result of the /checkout request.

Related Information

iDEAL availability is accessible on the iDEAL Availability Dashboard

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Please see our most recent API guide.

Updated almost 5 years ago