European equivalents to Swish want to enable cross-border payments
News, Staff memo Several European equivalents to Swish have started active cooperation to link their systems together to facilitate mobile payments between countries. If successful, this would allow individuals to use their existing payment apps to send payments to users and merchants in other countries. Neither Swish nor any other Swedish actors are participating in the ongoing cooperation. In a staff memo, Anders Mölgaard Pedersen and Fredrik Rydbeck at the Payments Department describe the work in Europe to connect mobile payment solutions.
Mobile payments have grown rapidly and are available across Europe
Over the past decade, mobile payments between individuals and in shops have grown increasingly, both in Sweden and in the rest of Europe. Swish was launched in 2012 and quickly became widespread. In Denmark and Norway, the apps MobilePay and Vipps have been introduced. Similar systems exist in other European countries, such as Bizum in Spain, Blik in Poland and Twint in Switzerland.
Cross-border payments the next step
Recently, several European equivalents to Swish have started working together to enable payments between different national systems. This would allow users to send money internationally through their existing apps, without downloading new ones. Cross-border mobile payments could be a future alternative to card payments using Visa and Mastercard. Neither Swish nor any other Swedish actors are participating in the ongoing cooperation.
Advantages of using account transfers
Cross-border and cross-currency mobile payments can be made via the Visa card and Mastercard networks' infrastructure. This is the case with existing solutions, such as Apple Pay and Vipps Mobilepay's cross-border payment service in the Nordic region. The authors describe in the Staff memo a number of clear advantages of using account transfers instead, such as more efficient payments and less risk. One possible infrastructure for this type of payment is the TIPS Cross-Currency service that the Riksbank will offer the market in 2026.