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As an expat living in Sweden, who does not have a Swedish bank account, Sweden has a few steps left to make changes if it wants to be completely cashless but st
by SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
As an expat living in Sweden, who does not have a Swedish bank account, Sweden has a few steps left to make changes if it wants to be completely cashless but still not be unfriendly to foreign visitors.
Most of the friction I run into is related to the banks themselves - sometimes it's quite impossible to do business with them unless you have a Swedish bank card (or personal number). Examples of things I currently can't do without the above:
1. Refill my train/bus card online or buy train/bus tickets online
2. Use Swish, the Swedish half-answer between cash and cards. This is the bank-to-bank transfer protocol which is only supported by Swedish banks. It is quite convenient if you have it, you can enter in a 10-digit number which many storefronts display next to the register and it otherwise works very much like Apple Pay Cash (which is not supported here yet unfortunately)
3. Have a phone plan. I have to use prepaid and cannot top-up online. I have to always go buy top-up receipts from Pressbyrån
4. Buy from several various mom-and-pop shops that also only for some reason have card machines that support Swedish cards. They also always have a Swish number as mentioned above.
#2 and #4 are usually the most problematic. When I go out with people from Sweden and someone covers something I inevitably end up withdrawing cash as the path of least resistance.
#1 and #3 are related to a popular payment processor in Nordic countries known as DIBS, who currently likes to reject foreign cards but I suspect will eventually support them. I'm hoping Sweden's banks and other payment systems finish integrating with the rest of the world before eliminating cash entirely so as to not alienate outsiders.
- egourlao 8y agoIs there a reason why you don't have a Swedish bank account, even though you are living there?
- mdekkers 8y agoI cannot speak for the OP, and I don't live in Sweden, but as someone freely travelling and living in many EU countries (I'm European) I can tell you that opening a bank account as an expat has become seriously hellish sometime in the the past two or three years. Transfers over certain amounts have become difficult, and more often then not, my business transactions (client invoicing) are blocked arbitrarily, pending "evidence" - 2 months ago it took me 4 weeks, and thousands of euros in legal fees to release a legitimate payment from a client to me. In the new EU, "your money" is becoming a myth. After the Cyprus Experiment, where the banks essentially took ownership of all money, they realised they could get away with it. KYC, AML, FACTA and related bullshit are seriously concerning me. Combined with the relentless and useless drive to this "cashless society" (why do we need this?) your money is not yours any more.
- Symbiote 8y agoAre you certain you've told your bank you are not American, or have anything to do with the USA? They get serious, unfriendly reporting requirements with American customers. A friend in Denmark had similar trouble, until the bank realised he'd misunderstood/ignored a letter they'd sent him asking him to confirm his citizenship.
- mdekkers 8y agoYeah, that incident was with a bank I knew many years, and they know me well. The manager told me "we do this for everyone now, compliance and regulation is just like this now". This is the new normal...
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoI'm on international assignment and the length of my stay dictates that I am not eligible for a personal number. Without the personal number it is still possible to get a Swedish bank account (by law they actually have to give you one in Sweden as long as you know how to properly request for it) but as an someone hinted below they definitely do not make it easy for you to get one if you are American specifically or foreign in general. Even Danes that have come to work in Sweden have stories of how difficult it was for them to get Swedish bank accounts, having to quote the relevant part of the law that states that they must be awarded one upon request. It also makes my taxes back in the US quite a bit simpler to state that I have no foreign account holdings whatsoever (I am still paid in my US bank account)
- paulhart 8y agoAre you an IBMer too? :)
- kungtotte 8y agoTo expand a bit on Swish: for individuals it is connected to your cell phone number. As long as someone knows my phone number they can send me money via Swish, basically you text money. Instant transfer, no charges. Businesses can set up special Swish numbers though, like you say.
- sweden 8y agoMost of the things you mentioned are not related to bank accounts, they are related to having a Swedish Personnumber (Swedish national ID number). It is perfectly possible to live in Sweden using an international bank account, I have friends who do it, and you can use for buying train/bus tickets and pay in any shop that has card readers. I never saw "Swedish cards", what are those?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago“Swedish cards” in this context means a typical credit/debit card that has been issued by a Swedish bank.
- AnssiH 8y ago> 4. Buy from several various mom-and-pop shops that also only for some reason have card machines that support Swedish cards. That seems unusual to me, Swedish debit cards are AFAIK just VISA/Mastercard cards so I'd think those should be accepted. I've never had any problems with my VISA debit/credit cards in Sweden but I guess I could've been lucky. Do you have any more information about this? Or do you have a non-VISA/MC card?
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y agoTypical American Visa credit card from HugeAmericanBank with no foreign exchange fee. I suspect it is related to the payment processor as hinted above. It’s somewhat rare and I see it only in smaller stores. Like a few days ago I was in a mom and pop kebab shop in a small town and it didn’t work. I’ve had similar problems on RyanAir planes in Europe (but for some reason whoever does payments for EasyJet, SAS, Norwegian, or British Airways I have no issues with)
- AnssiH 8y agoJust realized one possible cause - maybe your card isn't chip-and-pin like Swedish and other European cards? I guess some terminals/processors smaller places use might not be prepared to (or are configured not to) accept non-chip-and-pin cards. That would also explain why I haven't seen any issues - my cards are all chip-and-pin.
- icebraining 8y agoI'd say it's probably not a technical restriction but a commercial one. Their contract with the payment provider probably doesn't include credit cards, or at least foreign ones.