This post is a reminder that Visa and Mastercard are two american companies and that every time you pay for something with your credit card you are most likely paying taxes to trump and his goons.
This post is also intended to be a provocation to all the crypto haters and the cashless payment fanatics.
In Sweden we have Swish, which allows you to pay for stuff online without using any debit or credit card. I use it all the time, I cannot remember last time I paid online with card, unless it was from a foreign online shop/service.
However, it often isn’t available in grocery and retail stores. But it is often available in rural areas or small shops who don’t want to pay the fee for cards.
Also, Sweden is developing an e-krona, an electronic version of the Swedish currency. It should hopefully replace cards in all shops in the future.
Until then, using cash in grocery and retail stores is always possible. The problem is most swedes haven’t seen physical money in so long I am not certain they still know how to use it… 🤔
You actually can pay in quite a few retail shops using swish nowadays.
Also loads of stores don’t accept cash at all. Most big stores like grocery stores accept cash but not always all tills
MobilePay in Finland and Denmark. I am not so sure the underlying payment infrastructure is US-free though.