Every summer, the Belgian press reports on the excesses of some cashless payment systems at festivals. A bill has just been tabled in parliament to regulate them more effectively. YZYflow (formerly Emisys) is cited in it as an example of good practice. For us, this text is an opportunity to speak publicly on the subject. At YZYflow, we share this assessment but refuse to see an entire sector judged on the failings of a few. We welcome this bill and would point out that it matches what the vast majority of our clients already do.
Active support for market regulation
YZYflow supports any political initiative aimed at regulating its market. For us, the equation is simple: a better-regulated market means less abuse by certain players, greater respect for consumer rights and a better image for the whole sector. We support several of the bill’s flagship measures:
Defined deadlines: 30 days to submit a refund request, and 30 days to actually process the requested refund, a balanced and constructive framework.
Refund fees capped at a maximum of 1 euro: every cashless transaction generates very real bank charges, when topping up by bank card but also when refunding to the festival-goer’s bank account, which can justify passing a minimal fee on to the festival-goer; a cap of 1 euro seems fair to us, for both our clients and festival-goers.
YZYflow and its clients: the sector’s good students
The vast majority of the organisers we support already apply practices in line with the spirit of this bill: no or very limited refund fees, amounts displayed in euros or in a “local” currency with a simple conversion rate, transparency on the balance actually spent. The bill is also very much in line with the guidelines already published by the FPS Economy on 6 June 2024 on the use of event-specific means of payment, which we have been sharing with our clients, and inviting them to follow, for more than two years. A concrete commercial incentive introduced by YZYflow actively encourages these good practices among our organiser clients. We are proud of this; these clients deserve to be distinguished from the sector’s bad students.
FPS Economy guidelines: economie.fgov.be
86.7% of refunds made by YZYflow in 2026 already comply with the one-euro cap set out in the bill.
- of 2026 refunds already comply with the €1 cap set by the law
- 86,7%
- of refunds processed at no cost to the festival-goer
- 76,15%
- average fee per refund, across all clients
- 0,47€
A sector too quickly singled out
We condemn this kind of collective trial of cashless. Before these systems appeared, events had run for decades on tokens or paper tickets, with very real limitations:
Non-refundable credit: a lost or unused token stayed lost, with no recourse for the festival-goer.
No traceability: impossible to know what had actually been spent, or to detect theft and fraud.
Heavy logistics: physical cash to secure, transport and count on every site.
Cashless payment has changed this reality: it makes technically possible what was not possible before, namely getting back the money you have not spent, tracking your spending in real time and securing the event’s financial flows. Beyond refunds alone, it also provides safeguards that direct card payment cannot offer on its own: security against theft and fraud, better crowd monitoring for organisers and the authorities, and stronger protection of minors from alcohol. It is a real step forward, which the current media debate tends to obscure by focusing on the abuses of a few players.
More than ten years of field experience, in the service of dialogue
YZYflow’s managers and their colleagues have more than ten years of combined experience in the market for cashless payment solutions at festivals. Faced with these issues, we prefer dialogue to posturing: we invite journalists, legislators, consumer associations and industry players, competitors included, to sit down with YZYflow to explore these questions in depth, test our practices against real cases and together build a framework that genuinely benefits festival-goers. Our contact details are below.
“We refuse to see an entire sector judged on the failings of a few. At YZYflow, the vast majority of our clients already apply what this bill seeks to make universal, notably thanks to the incentives we put in place to encourage good practice. We support any regulation that better protects consumers, and call on the whole sector, competitors included, to engage in this discussion with the same openness. After more than ten years in this market, it is a dialogue we want to take full part in.”
About YZYflow
Although formally a new player in the market, YZYflow SRL is driven by the original team behind the Emisys project, a pioneer of cashless payment in Belgium from 2015 to 2025. Founded in February 2026 following the acquisition of its assets, YZYflow SRL publishes an all-in-one SaaS platform for event organisers: payment system (cashless and open loop), ticketing, access control, mobile apps, staff management, stock management, communication tools and analytics. This return to the market after the end of the Emisys chapter has proved a resounding success, enabling YZYflow to quickly reposition itself as a leading Belgian player in the sector, alongside many clients including Ronquières Festival, Les Gens d’Ere Festival and Baudet’stival. Based in Wavre, the company’s mission is to give event organisers a single platform to manage their financial flows, with the on-the-ground support needed to offer the public a smooth, fast experience and, above all, to keep fun and celebration at the forefront for festival-goers.