PIN was a debit card brand in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

from 1990 until 2012, owned by Currence. PIN was a

magnetic stripe card The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They share ...

, which never migrated to the

EMV EMV is a payment method based on a technical standard for smart payment cards and for payment terminals and automated teller machines which can accept them. EMV stands for " Europay, Mastercard, and Visa", the three companies that created th ...

chip. It was therefore discontinued in 2012, after the switch-over from magnetic stripe authentication to EMV chip authentication in the Netherlands was completed. PIN was replaced by

Maestro Maestro (; from the Italian '' maestro'' , meaning " master" or "teacher") is an honorific title of respect (plural: maestros or maestri). The term is most commonly used in the context of Western classical music and opera, in line with the ubi ...

and V Pay debit cards, but as most PIN cards were already co-branded with Maestro long before 2012, consumers noticed little of the change. Like in many neighbouring countries, the PIN debit card often doubled as a

cheque guarantee card A cheque guarantee card was an abbreviated portable letter of credit granted by a bank to a qualified depositor in the form of a plastic card that was used in conjunction with a cheque. The scheme provided retailers accepting cheques with great ...

for

Eurocheque The Eurocheque was a type of cheque used in Europe that was accepted across national borders and which could be written in a variety of currencies. Eurocheques were originally introduced in 1969 as an alternative to the traveler's cheque and for i ...

until those cheques were abolished on 1 January 2002. In contrast to its neighbouring countries (e.g.

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to ...

's and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

's Girocard), the Netherlands has not operated a national debit card network since 2012.

History

In 1987, the Dutch Central Bank investigated the possibility of merging the individual debit card schemes of the various banks in the Netherlands into a single system. This led in 1988 to the foundation of BeaNet, which provided a single network for all electronic payments and cash withdrawals in the Netherlands. Beginning in May 1990, merchants were provided with payment terminals linked to BeaNet, and in the autumn of 1990, BeaNet launched the PIN brand as the singular brand name for electronic payments in the Netherlands. In 1994, BeaNet merged with Eurocard Netherlands and Bankgirocentrale into Interpay, which later became Equens. Because of increasingly stringent laws and regulations in the areas of competition and transparency, Interpay decided in 2004 to move all its

payment system A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, instruments, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that make its exchange possible.Bi ...

s into a separate company called Currence. Currence took over PIN in May 2005. In the early 2000s, Currence aligned PIN with the regulations of the SEPA Cards Framework (SCF). A few years later, Currence decided not to move PIN to the

chip. As a consequence, PIN disappeared as a product on 1 January 2012, when the infrastructure for

s was shut down in the Netherlands.

In popular culture

After a successful advertisement campaign in late 1990, PIN quickly became synonymous with debit card payments in the Netherlands. Already in 1992,

Van Dale ''Van Dale's Great Dictionary of the Dutch Language'' ( nl, Van Dale Groot woordenboek van de Nederlandse taal ), called ' for short, is the leading dictionary of the Dutch language. The latest edition was published in April 2022. History Van ...

added the

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

, meaning "to pay by card", to its dictionary. Other successful campaigns included the card security-oriented campaign with Dutch singer

Rob de Nijs Rob de Nijs (born 26 December 1942) is a Dutch singer and actor, active since the 1960s. Biography 1962–1968 De Nijs, backed by The Lords, won a talent-contest in 1962 and released his first single in 1962, " Ritme van de Regen". In 1965 D ...

and the campaign ("Small amount, PIN allowed"), after the demise of

Chipknip Chipknip (a portmanteau of ''chip card'' and ''knip'', Dutch for purse) was a stored-value payment card system used in the Netherlands. Based on the Belgian Proton system, it was started by Interpay on October 26, 1995, as a pilot project in ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:PIN (debit card) Debit cards