Iceland builds account-to-account alternative to card payments
Tómas Brynjólfsson, Deputy Governor at the Central Bank of Iceland, said a shared account-to-account scheme will diversify retail payments. Procurement has begun, while planned European settlement integration targets readiness in the second half of 2028.
Domestic rails beneath private services
Speaking at the Money Live Nordic Banking conference in Copenhagen, Brynjólfsson said Iceland relies almost entirely on Visa and Mastercard for purchases.
The Central Bank has begun public procurement for a request-to-pay solution using its existing domestic instant-transfer infrastructure.
Consumers would pay directly from bank accounts in shops, online or between individuals, with immediate confirmation for recipients.
Common rules, standards and interfaces would connect banks and payment providers; private firms would supply applications and merchant services and compete on price and functionality.
Cards would remain in use, with offline capabilities being strengthened.
The scheme must gain broad acceptance before disruption to provide a usable fallback.
European scale with local fallbacks
Planned participation in the Eurosystem's TIPS service would settle Icelandic króna instant payments on shared European infrastructure.
Readiness work targets the second half of 2028, but no go-live date is set.
The Bank will assess T2 and T2S participation and TIPS cross-currency functionality.
Subsea-cable dependence requires redundant connections, satellite backup and local contingency capability.
It has assessed risks to seven critical services, strengthened crisis governance and established a financial-infrastructure incident centre in 2026 with round-the-clock monitoring.
Connection without sole dependence
Brynjólfsson presented European integration and domestic capability as complementary safeguards, not competing choices.
TIPS supplies shared scale and standards, while domestic rails diversify retail payment routes.
Cash remains a backstop for extreme, prolonged disruption, but everyday digital channels also need resilience.