The future of payments in the Nordics: Key takeaways from the panel discussion

Cards: Legacy, yet unbeatable?

While cards may be considered legacy technology, they remain widely used because they work efficiently. Apple Pay and Google Pay have managed to take this traditional payment method and enhance the user experience to an unparalleled level. The seamless, contactless nature of xPay solutions makes them difficult to displace, even as newer account-to-account (A2A) payment methods seek to gain traction. Card schemes are constantly innovating.

The role of account-to-account payments

A2A payments, which are fueled by PSD2 and open banking, continue to hold promise, but their adoption faces challenges. While they offer lower costs for merchants, they do not provide a significant improvement in customer experience over xPays. To drive adoption, merchants may need to offer incentives such as cashback or discounts.

NFC vs. QR codes: A battle already won?

With NFC technology enabling automatic payments without app interaction, customers are accustomed to a frictionless experience. Asking them to revert to scanning QR codes represents a step backward, making widespread adoption of QR-based payment solutions challenging in the Nordic market.

Click to Pay: A missed opportunity?

Visa and Mastercard’s “Click to Pay” solution aims to reduce payment friction by streamlining authentication. However, challenges remain:

• Payment service providers (PSPs) may not see a compelling reason to support it.
• Customer onboarding is considered too complex.
• Merchants feel that consumer awareness of the solution is too low.

On the technical side, Click to Pay is based on delegated authentication—a technology that has been in discussion for over five years. Its maturity and readiness for widespread implementation remain unclear.

Lessons from Brazil: The Pix revolution

Pix, Brazil’s instant payment system, emerged as a success story, overtaking cards as the dominant payment method within just three years. The case of Pix highlights the potential for fast, government-backed, low-cost payment solutions to disrupt existing payment models when executed effectively.

Cryptocurrencies: A long road ahead

The discussion highlighted that cryptocurrencies remain impractical for mainstream payments until the entire value chain—from issuance to acceptance—is fully integrated. A potential short-term use case could be using crypto to load traditional payment cards, but the necessity of such a solution remains questionable. While merchants could accept crypto currency as a payment method, they are not able to pay their suppliers and service providers with the same currency. Payment providers are open to support cryptocurrencies, when market demand is there.

The blurring line between POS and SoftPOS

The distinction between traditional POS terminals and SoftPOS solutions is disappearing. The rise of Android-based POS terminals is modernizing the in-store payment experience, providing a user-friendly and cost-effective alternative to dedicated hardware. SoftPOS terminals are at their best in mobile sales environments.

Loyalty and payments: Two taps are acceptable, one tap remains a dream

While there was some hope in the past that Apple Pay’s value-added services might enable seamless integration of loyalty programs and payments in a single tap, this vision has yet to materialize. For now, tapping twice—once for loyalty and once for payment—seems to be the widely accepted experience.

Merchant experience: Something in addition to long lunches and free drinks?

When considering the merchant experience for payment service providers, the most important factors center around easy onboarding, customer support, uptime, communication, cost-effectiveness, and security. A good payment provider offers seamless integration and onboarding through user-friendly APIs and clear documentation, allowing merchants to set up quickly without technical headaches. Transparent and competitive pricing is also crucial, as merchants want to avoid hidden fees and have a clear understanding of their costs. Additionally, supporting a wide range of payment methods—such as credit cards, digital wallets, and bank transfers in Nordics —is essential, especially if the merchant serves a global or diverse customer base. Clear communication before planned and during unplanned outages help merchants to excel in customer experience. In today’s selfservice world there is still room also for face to face dialogue and possibility to call to your named contact person at your service provider.

Final thoughts

The Nordic payments landscape continues to evolve, with xPay solutions leading the way in customer experience. While A2A payments and Click to Pay offer potential, their adoption depends on solving critical UX and awareness challenges. Meanwhile, SoftPOS, Pix, and the gradual shift in loyalty payment integration hint at the innovations still to come. One thing is certain: the payment industry remains dynamic, and the Nordics will continue to be at the heart of its transformation.

If you’re interested in more insights, please book an advisory meeting with Sampsa using the link below, or learn more about our payments offering here.

The article is a collaboration between payment experts Sami Nurmi and Mikko Vahter, and it also utilizes Matias Pietilä’s LinkedIn post.