Bol gets licences to run its own payments and credit

Bol, the Netherlands’ largest online retailer, has secured licences to handle payments and consumer credit itself, allowing it to keep fees that currently go to outside providers.

A new subsidiary, Bol Payment Services, was entered in the register of the Dutch central bank DNB as a licensed payment institution on 6 May, although the move only came to light this week.

The licence lets Bol process payments in-house, cutting out companies such as Adyen, Klarna and Mollie and pocketing the commission they charge on each transaction.

Bol has also been granted a consumer credit licence by the markets regulator AFM, which it says is mainly meant to offer buy-now-pay-later. The rules for pay-later services are due to be tightened from November 1.

The approach mirrors that of Amazon, which runs its own payment and lending operations. Analysts told Het Parool it was probably only a matter of time before Bol used the credit licence more widely, for example to finance the smaller traders who sell through its platform.

That would make those sellers more dependent on Bol, they said, while payments and lending carry better margins than selling goods amid competition from Amazon and Chinese webshops.

Bol has said it has no immediate plans to expand further into lending.