In the Payment Report 2025, the Riksbank considered that the ability to pay offline with cards needs to be improved. Since then, the Riksbank and representatives from the payment market and trade sector have reached an agreement to increase the possibility to make offline card payments for essential goods.

To further strengthen the resilience of the payment system, the Riksbank considers that more payment methods need to be able to function offline in the event of disruptions in society’s data communication. For example, mobile phone payments and Swish are becoming more common in commerce. As these payment methods increase, they are also becoming increasingly important from a contingency perspective. It is important that payment market participants analyse their ability to offer offline solutions in peacetime crisis situations or states of heightened alert. The Riksbank has therefore initiated work together with Swish and its owner banks to investigate an offline solution for the payment service.

The background and assessments are described in more detail in section “Collaboration makes the payment system resilient”.