During my happy days as a travelling consultant – based in London but spending most of my time in airports and on planes – I had the privilege of visiting scores of European cities on a regular basis. Fortunately, paying for products and services was always easy, as my UK-issued debit and credit cards were accepted everywhere, from Istanbul to Madrid, Rome to Oslo and anything in between. Actually, there was one exception – Copenhagen. Yes, years before even considering moving to Denmark I experienced a great Danish contradiction – one of the most technologically advanced and digitized countries on earth turned out to be the only one in Europe where a large proportion of retailers do not accept foreign credit and debit cards. Uncanny.
Being a curious chap I started asking the Danes I knew what the deal was with the Danish Dankort. It turns out the story is essentially a positive one – in the early 80’s the Dankort was launched as a regulated and cheap (for both merchants and consumers) payment card, in order to encourage stores to accept cards and encourage people to use them. It was so successful that apparently more than 90% of Danes possess one, and almost all retailers accept it. Already in the early 90’s Denmark experienced higher payment card penetration rates than most other Western countries due to the success of the Dankort initiative. So far so good.
Enter globalization. Increasing tourism (yes, even to Denmark) and international business bringing more and more foreigners to Denmark. And none of them holding a Dankort, naturally. What are they to do? “there’s a cash machine around the corner, you can use your foreign card to take cash out” was the typical answer from the salesmen at the store / supermarket / cinema / ticket office / ferry or any other of the thousands of retailers that never even seemed to consider accepting any other card. (OK, maybe not the ferry – no point looking for a cash machine around the corner there…)
So a story with good intentions (wanting to accelerate the penetration of payment cards in Denmark) ended up back-firing by discouraging retailers from accepting any other card than Dankort, since most other cards carry higher charges for the merchants compared to the cheap and regulated Dankort. How could the authorities completely overlook the entire non-resident constituency (tourists, foreign business people and other visitors) when launching this important initiative? And what does it say about public policy in Denmark? Well, it was the 80’s after all, perhaps visitors’ numbers were not quite high at the time.
Back to the present day – I shockingly find that many retailers in the big ‘cosmopolitan’ metropolis called Copenhagen still do not accept any other card. My shock deepens when I find out that it’s not only foreign debit and credit cards that are refused – it’s also local Danish debit cards that are not Dankort! Why does this matter? Because Danish banks refuse to give new customers the precious Dankort until they have a ‘regular income’ over at least 3 months. “But it’s not even a credit card, it’s a debit card linked to my bank account, and I have enough money in the account to cover my outgoings, so there’s zero risk to you” I said to the bank clerk. “Sorry, those are the rules” he responded. So here I am, living in Denmark with a local bank account for 8 months now, and I am still shown the way to the closest cash machine by many a salesperson in many establishments. I can get by with my Danish debit card all over the world but not in my hometown of Copenhagen. Embarrassing.
This bizarre situation probably explains why most expats and foreigners I meet here mention ‘getting a Dankort’ as one of their biggest frustrations in starting a life in Denmark. The banks don’t give it easily, and many retailers don’t accept anything else.
So what does all this say about Denmark? To me it’s another example of how Denmark is indeed a well-functioning society – for locals rather than newcomers. I experienced (and wrote about) it before – when confronting the job market, the real estate market and the vuggestue waiting list – and I will no doubt experience (and write about) it again. Sometimes this country feels like a place that completely ignores the fact that there are some people in the world who weren’t born here and didn’t grow up here, but nevertheless are interested in visiting, living, studying or working in Denmark. Hopefully those people will be considered next time the country launches a Dankort-type initiative.
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