Tuomas Valimaki, a member of the Bank of the Bank of Finland, announced that Finland together with Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Estonia will implement payments with offline card. According to Reuters, the decision follows inexplicable cable damage in the Baltic Sea and fears that sabotage linked to war in Ukraine could silence data links.
Valimaki told the agency that only one in the Finns still uses cash as a main method, so losing connectivity could freeze daily trade from night to morning. Each card transaction needs an international line, and cutting a cable could leave inactive rates.
He added that payments are executed in Visa and Mastercard Rails owned by the United States. A political dispute could turn them off without warning. Therefore, Finland plans a national instant payment network and reserve accounts to allow homes to take advantage of their shocks of savings.
Christian-Marc Lilflander of the NATO Defense Planning Section said in Helsinki that finance ministers must now sit on the security table. Payments, argued, stand next to energy and telecommunications such as pillars that an adversary can try in hybrid conflicts.
How will buyers pay when the cables darken?
Under the Nordic scheme, the payment terminals will keep an encrypted record of each touch or chip input when it is dropped. The staff will delete the registration once the service returns. Sweden wants coverage for basic purchases for up to seven days, according to its central bank.
Norway and Denmark already operate early versions, while Estonia is finishing his schedule. In each case, the plan is to allow people to buy edible and feed even a duration of a cybernetic incident or storm.
The daily routine will hardly change for buyers. They will still touch a card, and the recipe will indicate that the payment is to. Merchants carry the risk if the card later bounces, but governments can limit losses.
What lessons does the United Kingdom get from Nordic planning?
Great Britain has felt the pain of broken bank links twice in 2025. According to the Treasury Committee letters, Barclays customers could not reach the bank’s application or the website of the bank for three days around January 31, the self -assessment deadline.
Down detector then recorded problems in Lloyds, Nationwide, TSB and Santander on February 28, payment day for many workers, as reported by Computer Weekly. A senior technologist told the magazine that the interruption group suggests a shared software provider.
Branches magnify the clash. SAS’s investigation shows that the average constitution lost more than half of its branches between 2020 and 2023. When the only cash is a smartphone, a silent server can prevent grocerying from arriving at the table.
Lady Meg Hillier, who presides over the Committee, has asked nine bank leaders to a complete record of each breakdown since 2023, the lost hours and the compensation paid. She said banks have cut the face -to -face service, while online tools still fall.
The Nordic plan gives London an example live. Payment terminals in Great Britain already contain storage chips, so a software patch could allow issues of the issues of the same way. Regulators and banks would need to establish anti-fraud boundaries and rules, but the concept is ready. Westminster can look north before the next interruption of the payment day reduces the lights again.
