The vast majority of payments in Sweden, measured in terms of the number of transactions, have been made by card for many years. In the survey Payment habits of Swedish people, debit cards were the most common payment method followed by Swish, see figure 2. Services that integrate cards into mobile phones are also becoming more common, leading to a decrease in the use of physical cards. Examples of such services are Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Figure 2. Most common to pay by card and Swish Percentage of respondents who have paid by each payment method over the past 30 days.

According to the report Sverige betalar 2024, 51 per cent of Swedes use their mobile phone to pay in stores if the option is available. The share has increased by more than 10 percentage points since the same survey from the previous year. Of those who pay with their mobile phone in shops, half mainly use Apple Pay, one in five Swish and one in ten Samsung Pay.