NFC TIMES Exclusive Insight – The “Pays” wallets, such as Apple Pay and Android Pay, have not yet launched in Norway, but Norwegian banks are not waiting for tech giants Apple and Google or other outside behemoths, such as Facebook, to try to gain a foothold.
The banks are taking steps to make sure their own payments services don’t become an “app cemetery,” as one Norwegian payments service executive put it.
Norway, while not a member of the EU, is part of the European Economic Area, so has to comply with Europe’s revised Payment Services Directive, or PSD2, which will take effect next year. This is expected to bring much more competition to European banks and their payments services, including from such third party payments players as Apple, Google and Facebook. Banks in Norway are not the only ones in Europe preparing for more outside competition.
