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Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

riksbank.se

341–350 of 581 posts

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#341
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without internet connection? Edit: OK maybe there's different level of trust and some take a leap of faith :) In my experience debit didn't work but it appears that its not the same everywhere.

Yep, but IIRC only if they are credit, not debit. I guess they also have certain special conditions with the processor... Edit: I've also seen it when paying on the cafe car while on train trips in Spain. Even without any cellphone/internet coverage they'll let you pay, but only with credit.

It’s definitely not that simple. It’s totally random. I have only European debit cards, and I can pay everywhere. The same was true with my cards from other countries. Sometimes only Apple Pay/other NFC based system worked for some reason, which is connected to the same cards, when on the same airline I could pay with my physical cards in any other instances. Sometimes I can pay only with my physical cards. Sometimes one of my card doesn’t work. However, I didn’t have problems with them in the US in the past few years. It was more complicated over there before COVID.

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#343
post #5

Some context might be useful here. I spent some time living Sweden not too long ago and Swedes practically don't use cash. It's usually not said out loud, but cash is often considered to be dirty and criminal, to the point that most don't have any at all. Digital payments are very convenient and deeply integrated, so long as you have a local ID which allows you use the local payment system Swish etc. This worked nice…

To add some more context to your comment. One of the big attacks was in 2021 with the Kaseya ransomware attack that caused one of the larger grocers (coop) to essentially be unable to operate. Made national news as they had to give away product for free in some places.

source in swedish: https://www.aftonbladet.se/minekonomi/a/aPrJWL/hackergruppen...

And yes, we use cash so seldom that most people cannot from memory recall what the bills/coins look like!

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#344
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without internet connection? Edit: OK maybe there's different level of trust and some take a leap of faith :) In my experience debit didn't work but it appears that its not the same everywhere.

Yeah. They just accept some loss on bounced payments. Got a free meal (well it was a sandwich, nothing fancy) like that.

Can’t debit account go negative where you live? It’s definitely possible. Even when you don’t have an account credit, or what it’s called. Of course, this is possible only in strange circumstances, but still, I had a debit account with negative statement once. If I remember well, it was because similarly delayed offline transactions. It probably depends on country and/or bank.

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's usually not said out loud, but cash is often considered to be dirty and criminal ..." Are you sure this isn't impression you've gotten from isolated reactions involving a small number of individuals, perhaps just a single individual? I can't relate to the sentiment at all, having lived here for just over three decades and experiencing the popularity shift from cash to debit card. I can, in fact, not recall a…

I'm Swedish and if someone insists on doing a transaction using cash when Swish or card is available, I'd immediately start to wonder if it's for some kind of more or less shady reason, probably tax evasion at the very least.

Same. If I see reasonably young person using cash I would assume they've bought drugs and had some cash left over.

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#347
post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cheaper alternative to cards here is app payment via Swish (approximately like Venmo). Goes straight to the vendor's bank account at a flat rate of the equivalent of USD ~$0.15 per transaction.

Why don’t you pay the transaction fee every time you use your card or whatever then? Why should the merchant foot the bill?

That used to be semi-common for smaller transactions in Sweden but was made illegal. Not sure why, probably to fight tax avoidance.

At this point the cost of handling cash is way higher than handling cards and as no one in Sweden ever uses cash its no longer relevant at all anyway. Now many (maybe even most?) dont accept cash to avoid the cost of handling cash instead.

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#348
post #9

It's not about paying by cash but paying by card offline. How is this going to be implemented I wonder. On planes they often accept credit cards even when there's no internet. I assume this is a trust in-credit-based system because they don't accept debit cards, i.e. if you are worth being trusted with a card you can have your sandwich now and we will take care of the bank processing once we are on the ground. So may…

It's a trust thing yes.

Essentially, you (the merchant) just write down their card number, and how much they paid you, and then later you send that list to your bank who sends it to the credit card network.

There is no big technical hurdle. There is a big social hurdle in convincing your bank and the network that you should be allowed to do this. Also the card number gets copied by a little pressing machine onto carbon paper or something like that, not just written down.

Being able to spend money you don't have is not a new thing, and poses no technical problems. American readers will know you can easily do that with a cheque. It's your responsibility not to do that, and that's one reason why the bank wants so much personal information to open an account, so they can send the police over to break your kneecaps.

Re: Offline card payments should be possible no later than 1 July 2026

#350
post #5

Some context might be useful here. I spent some time living Sweden not too long ago and Swedes practically don't use cash. It's usually not said out loud, but cash is often considered to be dirty and criminal, to the point that most don't have any at all. Digital payments are very convenient and deeply integrated, so long as you have a local ID which allows you use the local payment system Swish etc. This worked nice…

It's funny how these attitudes vary across the EU. Here in Spain the government is trying to move everyone to digital payments so they can keep an eye on the flow of money, but normal folks are transacting as much as possible in cash to hide from the tax man...
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