Are households ready to weather a digital storm in retail payments? Evidence from the Netherlands

In an increasingly digital retail payments landscape, it is essential that households are well prepared for incidents that temporarily disrupt their ability to make digital payments for everyday purchases. This study examines whether Dutch households are prepared for such disruptions and whether official preparedness advice has translated into recommended behaviour. We use survey evidence from 5,672 Dutch respondents collected after the May 2025 official recommendation to hold €70 per adult and €30 per child in cash for a 72-hour outage of electronic payments and to maintain multiple means of payment. Awareness is high, but incomplete: 71% of respondents know the cash recommendation, while 58% hold the recommended amount or more. This implies a preparedness gap, especially among financially constrained households. Awareness is strongly associated with compliance; respondents who know the advice are 21 percentage points more likely to meet it. Non-compliance appears partly behavioural rather than purely informational or financial; the most frequently cited reason is not having got around to following the advice. Our analysis of several events, including communication about the cash advice, suggests that targeted communication may support compliance with the cash advice. Digital fallback capacity is more widespread than cash fallback preparedness, with 70% of respondents having multiple digital payment instruments for point-of-sale purchases. The findings imply that resilience policies should not only safeguard payment infrastructure but also address the informational, behavioural and practical barriers that prevent households from preparing.

Keywords: payment disruptions; consumer preparedness; cash holdings; digital payments; advice compliance; payment resilience
JEL codes D12; D14; D91; E42

Working paper no. 869