Last time I visited NL many shops (including Albert Heijn) only supported Maestro, so as a foreigner you effectively can't pay with Visa or Mastercard.
Last time I visited NL many shops (including Albert Heijn) only supported Maestro, so as a foreigner you effectively can't pay with Visa or Mastercard.
Not with Visa/Mastercard credit cards, but Visa/Mastercard debit cards work everywhere. In fact, my current main card is a Visa debit card (not Maestro or V-Pay, it has the same code format as a credit card and a CVC code, which my older Maestro/V-Pay cards didn't have).
This is one of the reasons why Garmin Pay is pretty useless here. Most banks only support it with credit cards and a lot of stores do not take credit card-based contactless payments (with some exceptions like e.g. Jumbo and Decathlon).
The reason is that debit cards have been the standard cards since the beginning. Nowadays more people have a credit card for online shopping outside the country, etc. But when I was young my dad had a credit card and that was fairly exceptional.
Back then there was still GWK. You could buy rolls of nickels to add some weight to your savings, american dollars and other foreign monies.
I'd buy myself a shitload of rupees (for a couple of tenners) if they were still around. Such a missed chance.