Harry Sintonen1d ago

Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Estonia are soon enabling offline debit card payments for at least seven days without network connectivity. The change covers payments for essential goods in physical trade, such as food, medicine, and fuel. Each country has made - or is in the process of making - the required changes to their related regulations to enable it.

The motivation for this change is to enable payments even in exceptional situations such as network disruptions due to sabotage or conflict. TL;DR: You can pay for essentials even if Russia cuts the cables.

Plans for this change were announced in May 2025: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/nordics-estonia-plan-offline-card-payment-back-up-if-internet-cut-2025-05-07/

#resilience #preparedness #infrastructure #payments #banking

Show threadBrie Mmm
@harrysintonen Cash works offline without special preparations.
Apr 13 at 12:51pmWeb
Show threadHarry Sintonen1d ago
@brie Agreed, cash works, too. Nordics have been practically cashless for ages now, however, and while it is recommended to have reserves, many don't.
Show threadAlex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK1d ago

@harrysintonen @brie

even in UK banks had separate virtual private networks independent of the Internet operating over dedicated leased lines for many years.

the challenge is going to be more getting the data from the terminals in shops to the banks securely, especially if the LTE mobile network is disrupted in any way..