>"We wanted to minimise the risk of robberies and it's quicker with the customers when they pay by card," says Victoria Nilsson, who manages two of the bakery chain's 16 stores across the city.
Nobody seems to be asking why Sweden all of a sudden has such a big problem with robberies.
What I’ve found surprising, having moved to Sweden, is the lack of contactless payment opportunities. Some places take it (ICA is usually fine) but it’s not the default. Maybe when Apple Pay launches later in the year things will start to shift.
When this came up a few hours previous, one of the comments (at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15224617 ) said "Swish is an app for micropayments. ... Everybody took swish and almost everybody paid by swish." Isn't that the same niche as contactless/RFID payments?
Swish is mainly used for transactions between individuals, and informal places like yard sales and flea markets. The main problem with Swish is that it is much slower than contactless payment as a transaction probably takes ~30-60 seconds from when you open the app until the recipient can verify that they've gotten the money. This makes it quite unsuitable for high volume places.
I guess so, but most people use Swish for p2p transactions (i.e. “you pay for everything and I’ll swish you my share”). Some places take Swish, but mostly small businesses who haven’t got a ‘proper’ card payments infrastructure in place.