On September 26, 2024, the Consumentenbond (Dutch Consumers’ Association) called on banks to take responsibility for protecting the personal data of customers who pay with their cell phones.

The Consumentenbond finds it unacceptable that banks are handing over customer data to Google without any oversight. Indeed, Google Pay’s privacy terms state that the company will collect, analyze and use payment data for other services. The company can thus offer space for personalized ads to third parties and earn from them.

The Consumentenbond argues that banks should offer their own mobile payment system, which would be supervised by Dutch authorities. Or, according to the association, banks should cooperate with a party that does nothing with the user data or banks should make rock-solid agreements with Google about what the company may and especially may not do with the payment data. The banks would hide behind Google by including in their terms and conditions that customers can choose to use Google Pay and that the banks cannot be responsible for what Google subsequently does with the data.

According to Consumentenbond, the data of consumers paying with an iPhone seems to be better protected. Those work with Apple Pay, and Apple’s privacy policy states that the company does not store payment data.