FinTech is radically changing consumer behaviour. Why has Sweden wholeheartedly embraced digital payments while the rest of the world is only just discovering them?
For several years now, there has been a noticeable shift away from the use of cash in Sweden. Instead, FinTech payment solutions are so widespread that the whole country is well on its way to becoming the world’s first cashless society. Many shops, restaurants, cafes, and bars are cashfree – it’s not uncommon to see “card only” signs next to most cash registers. Even the majority of bank branches, where you’d naturally expect to see paper notes and coins, are refusing to take cash deposits.
“Cash is still an important payment method in many countries, but that’s no longer the case in Sweden,” says Niklas Arvidsson, an associate professor at Stockholm’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) specialising in payment systems innovation. “Our use of cash is small and shrinking fast.”
ONLY Two PERCENT OF ALL TRANSACTIONS
Cash use has declined so much that the Riksbank, Sweden’s central bank, has even considered introducing its own digital currency, the “e-krona”, as a complement to cash. According to the Riksbank, 去年，PG电子官方免费下载所有交易中只有不到2%是用现金完成的. This figure looks set to drop even further to just 0.5 percent by 2020. Compare this to the global average of 75 percent and it creates a stark image of how little Swedes really use cash.
HOMEGROWN FINTECH SOLUTIONS
As the second largest FinTech centre in the world, it’s only natural that Sweden is one of the first countries to truly embrace the cash-free movement. The ubiquity of several homegrown FinTech solutions, like Klarna, which provides payment services for online storefronts; Trustly, which enables you to shop and pay from your bank account; and iZettle, which allows sole traders and small businesses to accept card payments via a mini-card reader and app, it’s unsurprising Swedes have been so willing to abandon cash.
可以说，该国最受欢迎的数字支付解决方案是Swish, an immensely popular mobile app developed in cooperation with the country’s largest banks. The app uses mobile numbers to allow anyone with a smartphone and a Swedish bank account to instantly transfer funds from one account to another. Just recently Swish reached a mammoth 5 million users, meaning it is effectively used by half of Sweden’s population.
Swish的广泛使用有可能完全取代纸币和硬币, and thereby accelerate the process of making Sweden one of the first cashless societies in the world.“Swish就像现金一样，是一种可以实时进行的直接支付。”, Arvidsson thinks. “该系统最大的优势在于这种独特解决方案的速度和简单性.”
A SEISMIC SHIFT
Despite Sweden's growing preference for cashless transactions, Arvidsson预计PG电子官方免费下载至少要到2030年才能完全实现无现金化. 但从该国金融科技领域的投资和创新速度来看, Sweden’s cashless future may be closer than we think. In the past five years, Stockholm-based companies received 18 percent of all private placements in FinTech companies across Europe. And Sweden’s share of European FinTech deals climbed from 8 percent in 2016 to 12 percent in 2017, part of what Stockholm FinTech Hub founder Matt Argent calls a “seismic shift” in activity within FinTech in Sweden since the hub launched in February 2017.
“The country’s tech unicorns are putting the country on the map as a viable destination for investment and this is influencing the FinTech sector,” he adds. “PG电子官方免费下载FinTech吸引了7.76亿欧元的总资金，相当于279亿欧元.38 percent average revenue growth, across 226 organizations employing 3038 employees – not bad going for a country of only 10 million inhabitants.”
Source: 本文最初发表于《PG电子官方免费下载优势》杂志.
Advantage Sweden magazine (PDF)
TREND-SETTING FINTECH FIRMS:
IZETTLE
One of Sweden's fastest growing companies, iZettle has developed a chip-card reader and app for smartphone-based mobile commerce that meets international security requirements. 该公司为小企业提供包括支付在内的一系列金融产品, point of sale, funding, and partner applications.
SAFELLO
Founded in Stockholm in 2013, Safello operates a bitcoin exchange and related services in the European market and aims to become the “Crushbase of Europe”. The company recently closed a partnership that allows customers to purchase bitcoin with Mastercard and Visa credit cards in several currencies around Europe.
KLARNA
This online payment service was developed by three students back in 2005 and now has 60 million users generating 650,000 financial transactions a day. The company has an estimated value of more than EUR 2 billion.
TINK
Tink is a personal finance app that helps users better track and analyse how they spend their money. Tink于2012年在斯德哥尔摩成立，还提供账单支付和汇款PG电子游戏. With more than 350,000 users in Sweden, Tink is expanding across Europe with help from investments from Swedish banks SEB and Nordea, as well as ABN Amro.
QAPITAL
Qapital is a free personal finance app that relies on “gamification” and personalized IFTT (‘if this then that’) rules connected to other apps that help users meet short-term savings goals. Founded in Stockholm in 2013, the company expanded to the United States in 2014 and soon after decided to focus exclusively on the US market.
FUNDEDBYME
funddedbyme是PG电子官方免费下载一家连接投资者和企业家的众筹平台, allowing people to invest as little or as much as they want. Founded in 2011, FundedByMe now has more than 100,他已经帮助来自25个国家的470家公司筹集资金. The fast-growing company has plans for an IPO during 2018.
