Mastodawn

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

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Leeloo 1d ago

@harrysintonen
It works for debit cards? How?

The one reason that I have accepted having a debit card is the absolute guarantee that it cannot be used to spend money I don't have. Otherwise, that's a credit card, and I will not accept a credit card contract.

Without access to my bank, how does this guarantee work?

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Victor Westerhuis 1d ago

@leeloo Probably the same way ATMs (at least in Europe) have worked for years now. If the connection to your bank is down, you can still take out money at an ATM. When the connection is back up, the money is deducted, whether there is enough in your account or not. You pay no interest, the charge is dated to the correct day.

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Leeloo

@viccie30
So a credit card and thus a contract violation.