Mastodawn

The central bank of Denmark, Nationalbanken, today announced its new offline payment system which means Danes will be able to pay digitally at the store — even when the internet is down.

This means both credit card payments and cellphone payments go through at the counter up to 7 days into an internet breakdown, because of a new technological solution which is being rolled out at grocery stores first.

Pharmacies will be added to the system later this year.

https://via.ritzau.dk/pressemeddelelse/14873884?lang=da&amp%3BpublisherId=13561853

7-dages offline-kortbetalingsberedskab på plads i dagligvarekæder... og snart også på apotekerne | Danmarks Nationalbank

Alle voksne danskere, der har et dansk udstedt betalingskort fra Dankort, Mastercard eller Visa kan nu betale med deres fysiske kort eller wallets på mobilen i de fleste landsdækkende dagligvarekæder i mindst en uge, selvom der sker et nedbrud i kortbetalingsinfrastrukturen, eller internettet ikke virker.

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Harry Sintonen 1d ago

@randahl Airplane inflight card payments have been doing this for ages. So nothing new technically as far as I can tell.

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Michael Westergaard 1d ago

Also for debit cards? (The OP is incorrect; this is for debit cards, not credit cards.)

There's a huge difference – credit cards can work off-line as they do not need to check the account balance, but debit cards needed an internet connection to check the amount to be deducted is available.

They very likely handle debit cards the same way: by just allowing people to spend for a week without checking the balance. It used to be possible using Danish debit cards as well but was removed for security reasons (financial security, not security security).

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Harry Sintonen

Sure. The same thing is coming to other nordic countries and Estonia, too. This was announced in May 2025 already. See https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/nordics-estonia-plan-offline-card-payment-back-up-if-internet-cut-2025-05-07/

Sweden rolls out their system by July 2026. https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/press-and-published/notices-and-press-releases/press-releases/2025/offline-card-payments-should-be-possible-no-later-than-1-july-2026/

Riksbank also has a some explanation how it works: https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/payments--cash/payment-preparedness/offline-payments/

It should be noted that this is more of a regulatory change. Technical aspects of offline payments have been in the systems since for a very long time.