Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Estonia are developing an offline card payment systems to avoid outages if online services are knocked out, according to Reuters.
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The plans comes amidst Western intelligence claims that in recent years Russia has targeted undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea region.
Bank of Finland board member Tuomas Valimaki tells Reuters that the chance of major disruptions has increased because of the “geopolitical situation”.
Norway and Denmark have already rollout out offline payments, with Sweden planning to join them by July 2026 and Finland and Estonia also working on systems, says Reuters.
The Nordic countries are among the lowest users of cash in the world. According to central bank data, just 10% of Finns use notes and coins as the their primary payment method.
The threat does not come only from Russia, says Valimaki, noting Europe’s reliance on US giants Visa and Mastercard.
“We cannot rule out that one night someone on Truth Social comes up with using payments as a pressure tactic,” he tells Reuters, referring to Donald Trump’s favourites social media platform.
