Contactless payments gain traction in the Nordics

By Puja Sharma

February 04, 2022

AI
Card Payments
Contactless Payments

digital payment

Denmark leads the pack with a staggering 90% of card payments–now contactless. Norway is close behind at 87%. Sweden and Finland have now both surpassed 70%. 8 out of 10 card payments are now contactless in the Nordics.

Nets, part of the leading European PayTech Nexi Group, has published data on card payments and in-app card mobile payments in 2021. In the Nordics – a region renowned for being a digital payments pioneer – the share of contactless card transactions increased from 74% in 2020 to 80% in 2021.

Nets is part of Nexi Group – the European PayTech with scale, capabilities, and geographic reach to drive the transition to a cashless Europe. They are committed to supporting people and businesses of all sizes, transforming the way people pay and how business is conducted online. By simplifying transactions and providing the most innovative and reliable solutions we enable businesses and financial institutions to better serve their customers, build closer relationships, and grow together.

Denmark is the leader in the region, with a staggering 90 % of all card payments being contactless. Norway, which was much further behind just a couple of years ago, is closing the gap with 87%. Sweden, like Norway, introduced contactless at a later stage, but has achieved the largest growth last year and is now at 70%. Finland remains just ahead of Sweden at 71%.

From March 2020, the governments of Norway and Denmark enforced stringent limitations on social activities, resulting in a boom in contactless payments in stores and restaurants. Only 35% of payments in Norway were made contactless in January 2020; by late October, that number had more than quadrupled to 77%, passing Sweden and Finland.

In Sweden, where authorities took a more relaxed approach to combat the pandemic, contactless payment usage has steadily increased throughout the year, rising from 44% in January to 60% of all in-store card payments by October 2020, roughly 86% of all card payments in physical stores were performed contactless in Denmark. With a share of 77%, Norway is in second place, followed by Finland with a share of 70%.

The share of contactless payments increased six points in just one week of the Norwegian lockdown.

Robert Hoffmann, Head of Merchant Services, Nets, said: “The Nordic region is the most digitized in the world and certainly among the leaders in digital payments. Nordic consumers have adopted contactless as the standard way to use their payment card at physical sales locations and the pandemic has been a strong driver for these ‘ taps and goes’ payments. This is positive for merchants, who get a faster payment flow, as well as for consumers who can pay more conveniently and without physical contact with the payment terminal.”

Data from the Nets Nordic Payment Report in 2021 also showed that seven out of ten consumers value contactless payments highly or very highly, and about 90% are regular users of contactless payments.

The contactless limit set by EU law is EUR 50, which is reflected in the local limits in all four Nordic countries. Contactless transactions via mobile devices, such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, work on all payment terminals with the contactless NFC functionality but have no transaction limit as the purchase is validated on the phone.