Swedes opt for ecash

Sweden has confirmed its leadership of Europe's ecash market with an order for 1,350 more smartcard readers from ICL, at a value of £1.3m.

Sweden's three main banks - ForeningsSparbanken, MeritaNordbanken and S-E-Banken - hope to replace all their ATMs (automated teller machines) with smartcard readers by 2001. ICL is providing all the hardware for the project.

Between them, the three banks offer current accounts for 80 per cent of Swedish consumers. As well as installing 100,000 cash loaders - which are smaller and less expensive than ATMs - they are encouraging consumers to adopt smartcards.

An ICL spokesman told Silicon.com: "The cards will eventually include an electronic purse, loyalty software, travel tickets and credit card applications for MasterCard and Visa."

He could not say how many Swedes already use smartcards, but claimed a recent company survey showed them to be ahead of the US in online banking.