MOBILE payment platforms have suffered several false starts over the past few years. The Economistnoted that usage of mobile wallets, where smartphones can be used to pay for goods via text, QR codes, or Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology in so-called “contactless payments”, was gathering pace in the United States and Europe. Our forecasts turned out to be premature. But one country has taken to contactless payments. Just as in flat-pack furniture and euphonic pop music, Sweden leads the way in mobile-payment technology. Largely this is because of its high internet penetration; 94% of the population has internet access. Four mobile-payment commerce platforms have cracked their homeland and are now looking further afield for custom.

One, Klarna, which began as a payment-processing service for online stores, has offered mobile payment services to businesses since 2010, and includes Spotify among its 15,000 customers. Sweden’s four big mobile-phone operators clubbed together to launch WyWallet, their own payment system, in the middle of 2013. At a stroke 97% of Swedish mobile-phone users could pay for goods at participating businesses. Another company, iZettle, recently gave card readers to Stockholm’s homeless magazine-sellers to process payments. It has grown within two years to provide mobile payment to businesses in Britain and Brazil, as well as in its home country.

The most intriguing of the four is Seamless, a 12-year-old company based in Stockholm. The technology, at least on the surface, appears simple. Seamless installs its proprietary system at the point of sale that comes with a sticker containing both a QR code and NFC capability. (Each method acts as a failsafe: QR codes are sometimes unreadable, while NFC support is missing from Apple’s line of iPhones.) Shoppers install its smartphone app, SEQR, and hold their phone against the sticker.

What goes on behind the scenes is more complicated. The customer's phone sends a small packet of data containing a user record and location to Seamless's system, where card details and account numbers are stored. The retailer's checkout system provides a cashier identification code and the value of the transaction, currently averaging €24 ($33). The data are matched, associated with bank accounts, and the purchase confirmed, usually in less than a second. Keeping sensitive data offline removes the risk of hacking, explains Peter Fredell, Seamless's chief executive.

For this service Seamless charges only a fee of 0.98% of a transaction, two-thirds of the charge typically levied by credit- and debit-card companies in Sweden—and less than Seamless's mobile-payment competitors. The firm's technology is installed in more than 1,000 sales outlets, including supermarkets, car parks and fast-food chains, and processes transactions made by 250,000 consumers. A further 3,000 shops plan to use the system this year.

SEQR has already migrated beyond Sweden's borders, signing up 400 retailers in Romania and announcing a partnership in Belgium with bpost bank and McDonald's. It has plans to expand, possibly in Britain and America, where credit- and debit-card fees are high. Around four-fifths of American consumers polled by Yankee Group, a market-research firm, are interested in paying for their shopping through mobile payments, but fewer than 15% have been offered the opportunity.

Sweden has shown that m-commerce can be safe and easy—two barriers that have previously prevented its adoption. Flat-pack furniture did not fill British and American homes until some 25 years after Ingvar Kamprad set up his first IKEA store in Sweden. Swedish mobile payments ought to become as common as a Billy bookcase much quicker than that.