How Nordic Banks Can Cut the Cost of Compliance and Keep Cards Safe

In an earlier blog, we outlined the huge cost to banks of maintaining compliance with PCI DSS. Now Nikolai Kjaersgaard Andersen, Director of Sales for Denmark Region from Tieto Banktech examines the specific security and compliance challenges Nordic banks face – and how to solve them. 

The Nordics are widely recognised as among the most successful digital societies in the world, with cash now accounting for less than 5% of all transactions in Norway and Sweden, and just under 10% of Danish transactions.  

Danish banks prevented a record DKK 500 million in fraud last year, with fewer customers affected.

While such low levels of cash use are of benefit to everyone, there’s no doubt that it makes Nordic markets more attractive to fraudsters, with fraud attempts across Nordic markets reaching unprecedented levels in recent years. According to our own monitoring, Norwegian banks successfully blocked NOK 2.3 billion in attempted fraud last year, while Danish banks prevented a record DKK 500 million in fraud across 20252, and the number of affected customers declined 7% from 2024. 

Managing the Cost of Security, Maintaining Efficiency 

Keeping customers safe is good news for everyone – but the cost of that fight, at the same time as new regulations drive up compliance demands, is not cheap. As [/LINK TO BLOG 1] we note elsewhere [/LINK], the cost of PCI compliance alone amounts to millions per individual bank – not to mention continous investment in anti-fraud measures and compliance with new directives such as DORA and PSD3 from the EU. 

Even as they face these costs, traditional banks are threatened by more nimble, digital-first fintechs unburdened by legacy systems and the requirement to maintain traditional banking channels. In response, growing numbers of banks are turning to Cards as a Service (CaaS) arrangements that help them respond to new compliance demands and rising fraud threats.  

With CaaS, there’s no need for heavy investment in technology or compliance teams, since the provider manages much of the operational and regulatory workload, so your institution benefits from predictable costs and less internal complexity. The costs of investing in compliance and security are reduced by sharing these between all participants in a “multi-tenant” set up – which also has the advantage of offering each bank the precise services it needs, whether that’s card personalisation, virtual cards, multi-function cards or any other service they require. 

At Tieto Banktech, we’ve worked with more than 250 financial institutions across Europe and beyond to serve their card issuing requirements. Our CaaS platform currently serves more than 14 million active cards, offering 99.99% uptime for authorisation availability and supporting the authorisation of more than 11 million transactions on a daily basis, at a rate of thousands of transactions per second.  

We have the ability, proven over decades, to migrate Nordic bank portfolios to our new platform with minimal disruption, whether that’s re-issuing hundreds of thousands of cards within a matter of weeks at a near-to-zero error rate, or the ongoing management of a single, multi-country portfolio of more than five million cards for a single provider.  

Manage Cards Securely And At Speed  

Cards-as-a-Service provides a powerful way for banks of all sizes to launch and manage card programmes with speed, flexibility, and confidence. In a fast-changing market where threats are not decreasing, CaaS helps you stay secure, compliant, and competitive so you can focus on growth and delivering the experiences your customers expect. CaaS is the smart, modern solution for clients that want to stay ahead, grow their card business, and meet the evolving needs of today’s customers through a single, trusted partner.

References:

1. Mordor Intelligence, January 2026, “Danish Payments Market” at https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/denmark-payments-market 
2. Danske Bank, March 2026, “Danish Banks Prevented A Record Level of Fraud in 2025”: https://danskebank.com/-/media/danske-bank-com/pdf/news-insights/files-in-press-releases/2026/