Sweden

In-store payments are overwhelmingly by card. In the Riksbank’s 2025 survey, 61% paid for their most recent store purchase with a physical card and 18% with a card in a phone wallet such as Apple Pay or Samsung Pay (up from 9% in 2023); all card forms together covered around 92%. Cash fell to 5% of last in-store purchases, from 10% in 2023 and 40% fifteen years earlier, and one in three small businesses surveyed did not accept it. Swish is used monthly by 91% of adults but for only 2% of last store purchases. Sweden has no national card scheme, so cards run on Visa and Mastercard.

Svensk Handel’s E-handelsindikatorn put Swedish e-commerce turnover at SEK 166 billion in 2025, up 4% on 2024, with 71% of consumers shopping online in an average month; PostNord’s E-barometern, using a different method, measured SEK 153 billion and 10% growth for the same year. Growth came from higher spending per shopper rather than more shoppers, with home electronics and pharmacy goods the standout categories. Cross-border marketplaces are a notable competitor: Svensk Handel reports that half of Swedes have at some point shopped on platforms such as Temu and Shein. Swedish law also dictates the order in which payment options appear at checkout (see regulatory notes).

Finansinspektionen (FI), the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, authorises and supervises payment and e-money institutions, while Sveriges Riksbank oversees payment systems and runs RIX, including RIX-INST for instant payments. EU rules apply, including PSD2 strong customer authentication, which in practice is often completed with BankID. Since 1 July 2020, Chapter 7a of the Payment Services Act (2010:751) requires that, where a non-credit payment method is available online, it is displayed first and credit options such as invoice or instalments are not pre-selected; FI and the Swedish Consumer Agency enforce this. Gambling is licensed by Spelinspektionen, and an expanded ban on gambling on credit in force from 1 May 2026 requires online operators to block credit cards as a payment option.

Sweden has near-universal banking. According to the World Bank Global Findex, 98.6% of adults had an account in 2024 and 97.8% owned a debit card; in 2021, 48% owned a credit card. The Riksbank notes that some groups, including new arrivals, people with intellectual disabilities and people without a Swedish bank account, can struggle to obtain BankID, and it has called for better access to payment accounts and cash services for those left out of digital payments.