Nordic countries have become the symbol of happiness and quality of life. All four of them rank high in the world's happiest countries list, with Finland being the winner for 2018. Nordic lifestyle is the new craze of life-improvement and different terms like "hygge" or "sisu" are popping up on countless articles. So what do we have to learn about payments from these iconic northerner lifestyle-gurus and what do they think about carrier billing?

Nordic markets have significantly high bank card ownership. Sweden is even called the most cashless country in Europe and predicted to become the world's first cashless society. The rest of the Nordic countries are not far behind. Nordic countries also have a significantly high GNI and 80-90% smartphone penetration.

Carrier billing is still a preferred option for many consumers thanks to its simplicity and safety. Compared to credit card payments, payments are completed much quicker and no personal data is transmitted during the checkout process, ensuring the consumer that no fraud or identity theft can be conducted. As a result, carrier billing 10% and 21% market share from digital content payments in these markets.

Over the past year, revenue per user has substantially grown in three of the four markets. Leading digital merchants including Facebook, Apple, Google, Netflix and Riot Games have also begun to leverage carrier-based payments in the region. This indicates the commercial and technical readiness of the Nordic mobile operators for increase user spend by providing them with a universally accessible, simple online payment method.

In the report, we have brought out a high-level overview of each market’s digital ecosystem, as well as specific data on carrier billing that helps merchants localize their approach to each country.

Data presented in the white paper has been taken from public sources of information as well as anonymized, aggregated data on payments processed by merchants using Fortumo's Web SDK and Payments API.

Fortumo's platform is used by thousands of leading digital merchants including Google, Spotify, Electronic Arts and EasyPark. Founded in 2007, Fortumo has offices in San Francisco, Madrid, Beijing, Delhi, Singapore, Estonia and Hanoi. For more information, please visit our site.