Sweden may feel like a payments paradise, but friction still exists before the customer ever reaches the payment step. The problem is often not the payment method itself, but the checkout experience around it.
“In many checkouts today, customers are still asked to fill in large amounts of information before completing a purchase,” Simon explains. “That creates unnecessary friction. And businesses often don’t know who the customer is until very late in the journey, which limits their ability to personalise the experience, impacting conversion and average order values.”
Simon believes we’ll see a growing shift towards express checkout solutions, as businesses look to simplify the customer journey and reduce friction ahead of payment.
The same issue appears when online and in-store payment data sit in separate systems. If you can’t connect those channels, they lose visibility into the full customer journey.
“Trying to consolidate that data internally gets tricky very quickly,” Simon says. “My advice is simple: lean on the PSP layer. There are expert partners designed to absorb that complexity for you, so you don’t have to build that unified view yourself.”
Unlocking recurring revenue and B2B growth
Swish recently fully launched recurring payments across all issuing banks, opening up more possibilities for subscriptions and other business models that rely on repeat billing.
“It’s been a very, very high demand product from most of our customers,” Simon says. “That’s an important step forward for us to offer even more services to the businesses we support.”
For businesses using recurring payments or operating in B2B, the challenge does not end at the transaction. Reconciliation remains a major operational headache, especially when finance teams are still relying on manual workflows.
Standard Swish transactions are already largely automated. But scaling a B2B or subscription model introduces new complexity. If your back office is manual, that recurring revenue quickly drains your finance team’s time.
“Reconciliation is still a headache,” Simon explains. “And banks and PSPs should play a crucial role here. We are seeing innovation with providers building better tools to automate reconciliation and reduce manual work for finance teams.”
The message is clear: launching recurring payments is useful, but only if the back office is ready to support them.
Why Swedish success stops at the border
A high checkout conversion in Sweden guarantees you absolutely nothing abroad. Assuming your domestic setup will scale across borders is the fastest way to lose your marketing budget.
“The biggest mistake would be assuming that what works in Sweden will automatically work in another country,” Simon warns. “You invest heavily in customer acquisition, but then lose value in the final steps of the journey due to overlooked details. Businesses need to invest time in understanding the local consumer behaviour to get the conversion rates as high as possible. Otherwise, you throw money out the window.”
That mistake is often rooted in overconfidence. Businesses assume they already understand the customer because they know their home market well. But once they enter a new country, they need to go deeper.
“You have people working at the office from your home country, and they think they understand and know everything already,” Simon explains. “It takes more when you expand to a new country to actually get into the details so consumers there trust you from day one."
The lesson is simple: trust is local. A payment method that is familiar and trusted in one country may mean very little in another.
“Swish has been the overall strongest brand for five consecutive years in Sweden,” Simon adds. “But that level of trust in a payment method is not a universal thing, and it can differ from market to market. For example, cards may dominate in many markets, but entering Sweden with only card payments would significantly limit your potential.
Building your cross-border payments stack
You cannot manually integrate 12 different local payment methods. The reconciliation alone will break your finance operations.
The fix is your payment service provider. But they must offer more than just a technical connection. They need to act as your local guide.
“PSPs play a crucial part because many offer their services across Europe," Simon explains. "Talk with them. They understand the market. They can help you scale at a low cost, and you don't need to invest that much from the start".
This approach allows you to test the waters. You launch with a small investment, monitor your customer acquisition costs, and scale only when the math actually works.
Their real value, however, lies in the data. When entering a new region, you do not need to guess what converts.
"If you ask a PSP working in the country, they will be able to tell you what methods are working," Simon notes. "They know the conversion rates, even down to different segments or branches. It's all there. Leverage that insight and work with the right partners.”
This local expertise is vital because Europe is not one single market. The industry loves to talk about unified European payment rails. The operational reality is completely different.
"We have a positive attitude towards interoperability," Simon explains. "But the main challenge is that local solutions are built on entirely different infrastructures and operate under different commercial models. Aligning them is complex."
He is highly pragmatic about the future of a borderless European checkout.
"I don't believe a single pan-European solution will replace all the local methods," Simon notes. "Consumer preferences vary significantly."
Instead of waiting for a single European super-method, the reality of scaling today requires a collaborative approach to acceptance. You need a payment partner that absorbs the complexity of these local heroes, allowing you to turn preferred methods on and off instantly as you enter new markets.
Even local heroes recognise the need for this connected infrastructure. Swish is actively bringing on non-traditional, global players as acquirers to boost cross-border acceptance. As Simon notes, taking influence from these key international players ultimately makes their offering "a better fit for the market and for our consumers."
Future-proofing: AI agents and human trust
The conversation around artificial intelligence in commerce has never been louder, but Simon separates the hype from the operational reality.
"We need to distinguish between two different scenarios," he explains. "The first is where AI agents assist with discovery – finding products, comparing options – but the consumer still completes and authenticates the payment. That is likely to grow in the near term."
A fully autonomous AI completing transactions? That’s further away. And Simon says the line between automation and human choice remains clear for the immediate future.
“When you ask Swedish consumers what they want, many are not ready to hand over full control,” Simon notes. “For simple, routine purchases like household essentials, it can make sense. But for more personal decisions, like buying clothing, people still want to feel involved in the process.”
However, when delegated flows do eventually mature, it will not be the global tech giants alone driving adoption. In Europe, local payment methods will play a key part in bridging that required consumer trust. And Swish is already ensuring it’s ready to support businesses, however agentic commerce develops.
The mandate for Swedish expansion
Simon’s mandate for European expansion is blunt: Do your local homework before you spend your budget.
“Start with local customer understanding,” he advises. “Before you scale and incur heavy costs, make sure you deeply understand payment preferences, trust dynamics, and conversion drivers in that specific market.”
The checkout can be one of your best growth engines, so you need to invest in it. In every market.
“Don’t treat payment as a technical integration,” Simon concludes. “It’s a core part of the customer experience and directly impacts growth. Test, learn, and adapt locally before you scale globally."
Ready to fix checkout friction and scale across Europe? Download our latest report to discover how.
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