Chipknip gone, and soon forgotten

From today it is no longer possible to pay with a chipknip. The Payments Association Netherlands thinks that not many people will be sad about this. Banks will automatically transfer the remaining balance on the chipknips to the current accounts of their customers. That will happen in the first quarter of 2015. It is estimated that there is still about 80 million euro on the Dutch chipknips. Initially customers would have had to go into the bank to claim the balance on the chipknip from today. But in early December Currence, the company behind the payment service, announced that the money would be refunded automatically. When it was released the chipknip was the answer to practical payment problems, such as the high cost of a debit card transaction. But chipknip use steadily declined. Users encountered practical problems, for example when charging the card. According to Gijs Boudewijn, assistant director of Payments Association Netherlands, very few people will therefore miss the chipknip. "There will be a few people who say: 'I thought it was nice to pay like that in the cafeteria', but I think we will quickly forget the chipknip."