News and insights

The Swedish Payments industry is undergoing its biggest transformation in over fifty years. With the introduction of ISO 20022, new standards are being set for instant payments, high-value transactions, and Bankgirot’s infrastructure. Banks are forced to adapt, and a vital guide through this change is Gustav Dahlström, Manager at 421, who has played a key role in several of Sweden’s largest migration projects.

As part of a major transformation in Sweden’s financial infrastructure, 421 supported a leading Swedish bank through the migration of RIX RTGS to ISO20022— the real-time gross settlement system managed by the Riksbank. We sat down with a team member from 421 to reflect on the experience and share key takeaways from this landmark project.

Last week, five of our consultants visited the annual event NextGen Nordics in Stockholm, hosted by FinExtra. The event brings together Nordic stakeholders within the Payments landscape – from banks and authorities to PSPs and FinTech companies. Some of the included themes were VoP/CoP, DORA, Open Finance, and regulation vs. innovation. In this article, we want to highlight our key takeaways from the events and what we believe will be important moving forward.

In our previous article, “Fraud in the Modern Payment Landscape,” we discussed how fraud has become a structural challenge in the payment ecosystem. Faster and more seamless payments leave opportunities for fraudsters to exploit gaps in the system. One major threat is Authorized Push Payment (APP) fraud. Since 2020, cases have sharply risen where victims are manipulated into executing fraudulent payments. Unlike credential theft, this bypasses many traditional controls, such as multi-factor authentication.

The rapid digitalization of payments has revolutionized money transfers, offering speed, convenience, and accessibility. However, as traditional transactions shift closer toward real-time capabilities, fraudsters are adapting just as quickly—exploiting new vulnerabilities to sustain illegal activities. Payment fraud has evolved into a critical threat, not just for consumers, but for the stability of the financial ecosystem. In Sweden alone, reports from the Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) indicated that payment fraud nearly tripled between mid-2020 and mid-2023, emphasizing the importance of strong fraud prevention. This whitepaper explores the evolving nature of fraud in the modern payment landscape, its broader impact, and the necessary adaptations within the industry to mitigate these risks.

We sat down with our Managing Partner Richard Lindblom and Partner Niclas Lindblom to discuss the key developments shaping the payments industry in 2025. Here’s what we’ve gathered.

The Swedish central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, opened their RIX INST system in November 2024 to support additional instant payments beyond Swish. In short, RIX INST (Real-time Interbank Settlement) is a modernization of Sweden’s payment system which enables real-time transfers between financial institutions utilizing the ISO 20022 messaging standard. All participating banks have been working hard on this project for years, a few of them with help from 421. We sat down with Niclas Lindblom, Senior Manager at 421 and RIX INST expert, to explore several potential product ideas and business cases that could emerge from this groundbreaking technology.

Permission Dashboards is set to give banking customers more control over their financial data and which third-party providers have access to it. This article provides an overview of Permission Dashboards, and insights from an industry expert.