Cashless society of sweden driving cards and payments

Swish has grown in popularity since its launch, with 4.9 million users in Sweden as of November 2016. In May 2016, USD 892.3 million (SEK7.5 billion) worth of transactions were performed using Swish, rising to USD 994.3 million (SEK8.4 billion) in November 2016. Contactless technology is still at a nascent stage of development in Sweden, with only a handful of banks-such as ICA Banken and Danske Bank-offering contactless cards. The number of contactless cards increased threefold from 439,707 in 2015 to 1.5 million in 2016, and is anticipated to reach 15.0 million by 2021. With a rising number of small businesses and street vendors accepting payment cards for small-value transactions, the introduction of contactless technology is expected to drive payment card transaction volumes over the forecast period.