GOV.UK Goes Dutch On Payments As It Dumps Stripe (theregister.com) 10
The UK's Government Digital Service is replacing Stripe with Dutch payments provider Adyen for many GOV.UK Pay transactions, including local authorities, police forces, and armed forces units. The three-year deal covers about 1,000 services and is meant to make payments more flexible while keeping the user experience largely unchanged. The Register reports: According to the tender notice published in February 2025, the contract covers around 17 percent of payments made through GOV.UK Pay but more than 70 percent of its organizations and includes the only option allowing users to start taking payments within one working day. At that point the contract had an estimated maximum value of £49 million, although with no guarantees over volume.
In a blogpost about the contract award on 2 June, GDS said it will migrate around 1,000 services to the new supplier. "We will make migration as straightforward as possible while complying with Know Your Customer legislation that protects everyone from fraud," wrote Alan Maddrell, senior content designer for the service. "Most importantly, there will be no discernible difference for paying users and no loss in functionality."
He added that the change of supplier will help introduce new options including pay by bank, which transfers money directly between bank accounts using open banking services and avoids the need to type in card details. GDS will continue to use WorldPay to process payments for central government, linked organizations and NHS bodies.
In a blogpost about the contract award on 2 June, GDS said it will migrate around 1,000 services to the new supplier. "We will make migration as straightforward as possible while complying with Know Your Customer legislation that protects everyone from fraud," wrote Alan Maddrell, senior content designer for the service. "Most importantly, there will be no discernible difference for paying users and no loss in functionality."
He added that the change of supplier will help introduce new options including pay by bank, which transfers money directly between bank accounts using open banking services and avoids the need to type in card details. GDS will continue to use WorldPay to process payments for central government, linked organizations and NHS bodies.
Cost? (Score:1)
Re:Cost? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, I'm sure governments get better rates. But yes, it's likely a nationalism thing. Stripe, being American and Adyen being European. People are dropping American tech when they can switch, and I'm guessing the UK contract was up.
And while they may be expensive, it's probably cheaper since they can handle card payments online without having to do all the PCI security stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I'm sure governments get better rates. But yes, it's likely a nationalism thing. Stripe, being American and Adyen being European. People are dropping American tech when they can switch, and I'm guessing the UK contract was up.
And while they may be expensive, it's probably cheaper since they can handle card payments online without having to do all the PCI security stuff.
It's less of a nationalism thing and more of a national security thing. The US has demonstrated that it's an unreliable partner.
When it comes to government, you have wholesale, then you've got wholesale, then you've got government wholesale. They're probably getting transactions for pennies compared to the extortionate rates that small business pay (this is why companies rarely advertise their rates, at least the full rates rather only the headline rates that are at best, obfuscating the actual costs, sm
Re: (Score:3)
Adyen and Stripe are both rather expensive with their normal rates... Is this just a euronationalism thing? or a way for some politician to get kickbacks? or what?
As I recall, this was an open contract, that did not have any EU only requirement (lots of other requirements, of course). I would guess Adyen just offered a better solution (and/or price) than Stripe.
Re:Cost? (Score:5, Informative)
Generally speaking Adyen rates are not expensive per transaction at all. Just you need a certain scale to make Adyen feasible, they basically only want to work with large parties.
Re: (Score:1)
You grab all the profitable areas of the market off whom ever was doing it before and leave them with the dross.
Plus of course it really reduces the risks of one country having an "Off Switch" to impose what ever on other countries because they can switch to an alternative supplier.
Re: (Score:2)
A competitor to Stripe and Adyen worth considering is Mollie [mollie.com]. Adyen is focused on large scale enterprises while Mollie wants to work with any size entity.
Fun fact: both Adyen and Mollie are based in Amsterdam, walking distance from each other, and there's probably a joke or two for the slashdots in there somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
Is this just a euronationalism thing?
Nationalism is a thing in every location due to the fact that different countries have wildly different payment methods standardised. For example Amazon have their own payment provider Amazon Pay, which they don't even use in Europe because it lacks support for many payment methods. Few people support Paypal in the Netherlands or Germany as they don't support Wero or Girocard. If you focus on a provider which only support credit cards, you will have effectively locked out 75% of the market in some places in
Digital Sovereignty (Score:2)
Is this just a euronationalism thing?
I am keeping a list of articles that show a number of European countries (not just EU ones) moving to increase their digital sovereignty. Given the behaviour of the American administration and the behaviour of American tech companies, this is hardly surprising.