The 62 co-operative and savings banks that form the Bokis banking collective have become the first in Denmark to offer mobile payments using Dankort, the national debit and credit card.
The Bokis banking coalition, alongside four nationwide banks - Sydbank, Spar Nord Bank, Arbejdernes Landsbank and Nykredit Bank - have contracted with Nordic payments processor Nets for the deployment, which will use digital tokens to replace the use of Dankort card numbers at the point-of-sale for tap-and-go payments.
An Android application was first out of the gate last month, followed by the release of an iOS version of the HCE mobile wallet this week.
Between them, the banks have a customer user base that cover half of the country.
Søren Nicolaisen, director of Bokis and association Nationwide Banks, says: "Dankort continues to be the favorite Danish debit card, and we are seeing a growing interest in mobile payments among Danes, so this was the obvious next step."
Due to the higher fees charged by banks for the use of non-Danish issued cards (that consist of foreign card network interchange fees plus Danish banks own fees), many Danish merchants only accept Dankort and Danish-issued credit cards.
Nets is using HCE technology from Japanese card issuer JCB as the foundation for the mobile payment system. The firm says Danish supermarkets are among the first merchants to accept Dankort mobile payments, via a Bluetooth acceptance device that sits next to their conventional payment terminals.
"Following a simple software update to their POS terminals, all merchants that already accept contactless Dankort card payments will also be able to accept Dankort mobile payments," says the company.