The development in the Danish payments market is rapid, and new digital payment solutions are continuously being introduced, e.g., wallet payments on mobile phones such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. The share of card payments made with a wallet solution is increasing and amounted to nearly 39 percent of card payments in physical trade in Q2 2025.
In Denmark, most merchants in physical commerce can accept offline card payments with local authorization, but this requires, among other things, that the payment is made with the physical card. In order to ensure that cardholders can pay in the same way as usual for the most basic necessities, work is being done under the auspices of the Danish Payments Council to complete the roll-out of offline card payments with deferred authorization in pharmacies and grocery chains in Denmark. This solution can be used with all payment cards from Dankort, Mastercard and Visa, but also with wallet solutions on mobile phones.
“Danish citizens predominantly pay digitally. This places demands on both the payment infrastructure and the individual systems on which the various payment solutions are based. Over the past couple of years, we have been working on an offline solution that can handle all payment cards and wallets. The solution has already been rolled out in one of the largest grocery chains in Denmark, and more are to follow. We believe that this solution holds potential for a wider range of merchants,” said Governor Ulrik Nødgaard.
At Global Fintech Fest, Ulrik Nødgaard focused on the importance of a robust payment infrastructure. Incidents such as the interruption of card payments in Denmark in July 2025 and the power outage on the Iberian Peninsula have helped to underline the importance of citizens and shops being able to use several different payment solutions. Together with offline card payments and casg, payment solutions based on account transfers, e.g., instant payments, can play an obvious and greater role in the future.
“Our payment infrastructure must be able to withstand breakdowns – whether due to technical errors or cyber incidents. In Denmark, offline payments with payment cards constitute the primary payment contingency. The robustness of payments in Denmark could be further strengthened if payment solutions based on account transfers were more widespread. This was evident during the nationwide breakdown in this summer. Here we saw that the number of account transfers increased, which underlines that different solutions can supplement each other in situations with breakdowns,” said Ulrik Nødgaard.
The Global Fintech Fest conference is organised by the Payments Council of India and other stakeholders in the payments sector, together with institutions such as the Reserve Bank of India and the Government of India. Global Fintech Fest was first held in 2020, and in 2025 it is expected to attract over 100,000 participants from around 100 countries.
Read more in:
Analysis: Resilient payments in Denmark
Press releases: Danmarks Nationalbank's recommendations to maintain payments in stores and at other physical points of sale
And on the site: Resilient payments in Denmark
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