Nordic crypto platforms use BankID, Vipps, Swish, MobilePay, and direct bank deposits to make it easier and safer to get started with cryptocurrency trading. The focus is on simple user journeys, not new payment habits.
Both Nordic and global exchanges are now adopting FIRI's success formula from Norway: tight integration with national ID and payment solutions, and uncompromising prioritization of user experience. Recently, both BTCX and Coinmotion have launched such solutions for Swedish users.
Firi, led by CEO Thuc Hoang (pictured), is one of the clearest examples of how this model works in practice. Being first with BankID verification, early adopter of PSD2-based open banking for deposits, tightly integrated with Vipps, and maintaining a consistent focus on a simple customer journey has been a key factor behind growth to over 400,000 customers in Norway and Denmark.
Firi-entrepreneur Thuc Hoang has previously described the starting point to Kaupr as follows: Growing up in a Norway where digital banks and BankID are the norm, he intends to build a good product for users by using more technology on top of this infrastructure. “I grew up in a world where banks are digital. You have BankID, and you have all this infrastructure that can be used. I just thought: Why not use this technology? Everyone uses it. It shouldn't be that hard.”
According to Hoang, efforts to simplify the customer journey have been a main priority all the way: “The customer journey has always been the main obsession.” Prima of all, uncompromising on user experience and with the BankID, Vipps and Open-Banking strategy at its core, this is a “winning medicine” that an increasing number of exchanges are now trying to copy.
In the Nordic countries, digital identity and payment are part of everyday life. BankID, MiTiD and similar solutions are used for everything from mortgages to public services, while Vipps, Swish, MobilePay and instant payments in online banking are standard in the private economy.
For crypto services, that means the competition is largely about who best mirrors the user experience of national banks and payment apps. Logging in with a national ID, quick deposits via known payment surfaces and predictable withdrawals are in practice just as important as the selection of cryptocurrencies and rates.
This logic underlies several of the moves we are now seeing in the Nordic market, where local solutions for ID and payment are becoming the very foundation for further growth.
In Sweden, the development is clearly pointing toward local payment solutions also in crypto. BTCX now has Swish as a payment method in both BTCX Express and Standard Exchange, in addition to card and bank payments. This makes buying bitcoin fast and simple, and the money goes directly to the user's own bitcoin wallet, in line with how Swish is already used in large parts of Swedish payment daily life.
Coinmotion, for its part, has moved from a more traditional model based on SEPA transfers and cards, to a clearer emphasis on fast online banking and account-to-account payments for Swedish and Nordic users. With the integration of Swish and direct bank transfers when buying crypto in the Coinmotion app, the goal is the same: a shorter path from decision to completed purchase, without the user having to adopt new or unfamiliar payment habits.
For Swedish users, this means that crypto can increasingly be bought and sold through the same tools used in everyday life otherwise — with Swish, online banking and cards as natural entry points.
In Norway, the combination of BankID, Vipps and open banking has enabled market participants to offer a crypto experience similar to traditional online banking. BankID login, quick bank account deposits and Vipps integration have lowered the threshold for new users, while regulatory frameworks and supervision have helped build trust.
In Denmark and Finland, we see many of the same tendencies, but with other local building blocks. Vipp's MobilePay (including MobilePay in Denmark and Finland), national ID solutions and banks' proprietary interfaces are increasingly being used as the foundation for new crypto services and investment platforms. For the exchanges, it is about connecting with what is already standard in the population, rather than trying to establish their own parallel payment universes.
Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe – the first of the major global exchanges to clearly commit to the Nordics – also emphasized the need for local adaptations in an interview with Kaupr. He points out that OKX stands out by combining a global platform with a strong focus on security and compliance with local regulations as pillars. The strategy for entering Europe is to link a large global product and development team with strong local adaptation through language support, local login solutions, and dedicated on-the-ground teams in each individual market.
What the Nordic markets have in common is that the success formula is now clear: start with existing ID and payment infrastructure, remove as much friction as possible in login, deposits, and withdrawals – and let the user experience drive the choice of technology, not the other way around.
