Scandinavian Banks Vote for Autonomy

For example, according to official statistics, only about 10% of Finland’s population use cash as their primary payment method for retail purchases.

Scandinavian countries have initiated the development of an offline payment system using bank cards that will function even without an internet connection. The creation of such a system has become especially important following several incidents that caused damage to undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. According to Reuters, in 2023, “the region’s largest bank, Nordea, fell victim to an unprecedented cyberattack that restricted customers’ access to their online accounts for several weeks.”

Analysts in the Nordic countries have highlighted the dependence of card payments on U.S. payment systems.

People in Sweden can already make purchases using bank cards issued by Mastercard and Visa even when they are not connected to the internet. As a further step toward strengthening national security, Sweden’s central bank is introducing Swish, a local mobile payment system that bypasses Visa and Mastercard networks. Swish payments are processed through the real-time instant payment infrastructure owned by Sweden’s central bank (Sveriges Riksbank).

The system is intended to enable people to make retail purchases offline. The technology being implemented involves terminals that encrypt and store transaction data until connectivity is restored if the connection is interrupted.

Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, has also spoken about the need to create Europe’s own payment infrastructure to reduce dependence on foreign providers such as Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Alipay. In an interview with the Irish radio station Newstalk, she noted that “critical information about European users is transmitted through non-European systems, leaving the EU vulnerable amid geopolitical instability.”

Author: Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor, Department of World Economy and World Finance, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Natalia Vladimirovna Sergeeva.