New rules threaten to slow down mobile payment solutions

Jan Peter Madsen, PA mobile payments expert, shares his views on the Danish mobile payments market, and why the new PSD2 rules could slow down their move into the Danish market.

In 2017, we saw mobile payment solutions becoming serious contenders to the credit card, with popular money transfer app MobilePay, newcomer Apple Pay, and Dankort all taking a larger share of the mobile payments market.

As Jan Peter sees it, we will see mobile payments steadily take a larger part of the mobile payments market in the coming years, with suppliers competing to offer solutions that are easy to use and offer the fastest transactions.

But the advance of mobile payments in Denmark may slow down due to the new PSD2 rules, which came into effect in January 2018. The new rules make it illegal for businesses to charge the consumer directly for the potential extra cost of a mobile payment.

"The new rules are meant to ensure there’s more competition and transparency for the consumer, but in practice, business will send the extra bill for the more costly transactions on to us, the consumer, by raising their prices. We anticipate an overall increase in prices, for example when Apple Pay transfers the payment from Dankort to Visa card, which is significantly more expensive to use for businesses."