Sweden Prepares for Life After Bankgirot: A Major Change in Payments

Sweden is entering the final phase of its payment infrastructure overhaul. By the end of 2026, most Bankgirot services — long considered a backbone of domestic payments — will be decommissioned. This includes popular services like Leverantörsbetalningar (supplier payments), BG-Lön (salary payments), and Bankgiro Inbetalningar (incoming payments and reconciliations).

The replacement? A fragmented landscape of direct-to-bank integrations, governed by ISO 20022 messaging standards.

What Is Happening

The Swedish Transformation Program, led by the Swedish Bankers’ Association, has confirmed a two-phase transition:

• Phase 1 (Q2 2026): Account-to-account payments will migrate off Bankgirot and onto bank-specific channels
• Phase 2 (Autumn 2026): Alias-based payments (Bankgiro & Plusgiro numbers, salary flows) will follow

Bankgirot’s long-standing role as a central clearing and payment hub will effectively end. While Autogiro and E-invoice (e-faktura) services will remain active, most corporates will need to rewire their payment flows.

Why It Matters

For decades, Bankgirot provided a unified rail for domestic B2B and payroll payments. Now, companies must:

• Connect directly with each bank’s payment system
• Adapt to different formats, file protocols, and validation rules
• Replace reconciliation and approval workflows tightly coupled to Bankgirot services

ERP vendors, corporates, and service providers face a high-stakes adaptation curve.

This isn’t just a format change. It’s a fundamental rewiring of how finance teams operate.

Visualizy's Take: From Centralization to Fragmentation

While the move to ISO 20022 enables richer data and modern standards, the reality is a new kind of complexity:

• Fragmented bank APIs with inconsistent logic and release timelines
• Higher operational risk from failed files and broken reconciliation flows
• Visibility gaps as CFOs juggle different portals and approval chains

Bankgirot’s phase-out removes the central layer many finance teams relied on for coordination and simplicity.

Analysis: What Comes Next?

For CFOs and Treasurers: The risk is losing financial control across multiple banks. Real-time cash visibility, unified approvals, and resilient reconciliation logic will need to be rebuilt.

For ERP Vendors: You’re being asked to deliver multi-bank logic, validations, and reporting—all on different rails. This is a call to either build heavy or partner smart.

For Banks: Expect pressure to support corporate clients through this transition. Those who offer normalized APIs, orchestration portals, or Visualizy-powered solutions will retain and attract enterprise customers.

For Bankgirot: While parts of the organization may remain, the market now looks to third-party platforms for orchestration, abstraction, and oversight.

In Summary

Sweden's retirement of Bankgirot services marks one of the most significant shifts in the country's payment landscape in decades. It's a story of modernization, but also one of complexity. Those who treat it as a strategic inflection point — not just a compliance project — will come out ahead. You can follow the program activities and timeline on transformation program's dedicated website (link)

Visualizy will continue helping finance teams, ERP vendors, and banks navigate this transformation with normalized APIs, multi-bank orchestration, and real-time cash visibility.

To learn more, contact us.

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