Buy bitcoin with Bancontact

What is Bancontact?

Bancontact is Belgium's domestic card and payment scheme, operated by Bancontact Company, the rebranded Bancontact Payconiq Company, which describes itself as a regulated payment institution under the supervision of the National Bank of Belgium. The Bank still uses the longer name and lists it alongside Mastercard Europe as one of only two Belgian entities under the European oversight framework for payment schemes. You pay with a Bancontact debit card issued by your Belgian bank or through the Bancontact Pay app, authenticating online payments by scanning a QR code or confirming in your banking app. The company reports over 2.5 billion transactions a year, and it is the default way Belgians pay in shops and at online checkouts.

Speed

Bancontact describes confirming a payment in seconds: you authenticate in the app or with your bank, and the amount leaves your account rather than waiting for a transfer to clear.

Cost

Bancontact publishes no consumer fee for paying, since the acceptance cost sits with the merchant, so what you pay is whatever your own Belgian bank charges for the card or the account.

Limits

In the Bancontact Pay app you can pay or receive up to 750 EUR between users and spend up to 1,500 EUR at a shop or business; card limits are set by your bank.

Speed and cost describe the rail itself. What an exchange adds on top varies by platform and is shown per exchange below.

Using Bancontact in Belgium

Bancontact appears in one country guide on this site, Belgium, where deposits settle in Euro (EUR). Buyers there fund exchange accounts with SEPA transfer, SEPA Instant, Credit or debit card, Apple Pay and others as well, and the country guide ranks the exchanges that take each one.

Buy bitcoin with Bancontact in Belgium