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 threadLeeloo22h 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?

Show threadHarry Sintonen22h ago
@leeloo See https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/payments--cash/payment-preparedness/offline-payments/ for rough explanation.
Offline payments

The Riksbank and representatives from the payment market have reached an agreement to increase the possibility to make offline card payments for essential goods

Show threadLeeloo22h ago
@harrysintonen
Nothing about my question.
Show threadHarry Sintonen22h ago
@leeloo If "spending money you don't have" is a concern there's a rather easy mitigation: pay with cash only when the network is down.
Show threadLeif Samuelsson

@harrysintonen @[email protected]

Or pay with cash when you want #privacy.

Apr 13 at 5:37pmWeb