Banks Are Building a Super-Speed Money Highway in the Nordics

The biggest Nordic banks expect to launch a new piece of financial infrastructure next year, promising to dramatically speed up international transfers in one of the world’s most technologically advanced regions, according to Bloomberg.

The aim is to make it possible to clear payments and settle accounts within seconds, regardless of currency. The P27 project, so-called for the 27 million people who live in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, will build on the success of smart-phone payment applications that Nordic banks have already created, like Swish in Sweden, Norway’s Vipps, and MobilePay in Denmark.

The collaboration reflects an effort to stay ahead of global technology giants as customers no longer rely exclusively on their banks for financial services. The difference between P27 and the payment apps Nordic banks already offer is the cross-border nature of the project. What’s more, transactions won’t face the same caps that existing payment apps do.

Banks are eager to provide infrastructure that locks customers in. And with branch visits going the way of cash, digital payments are one of the few points at which banks and their clients meet up. Getting this infrastructure right is key to the financial industry’s future success.

The banks working on P27 are also eager to ensure that their project has a hand in shaping a European-wide settlement system. Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have their own currencies. Finland uses the euro. The project should be up and running by the time Europe’s revised Payment Services Directive takes effect next year. The new rules require banks to provide other companies access to client-account data if customers want them to.The P27 group is still consulting with central banks, since all transactions eventually go through their systems.