Swish payment app
Hacker ApprovedRanked 7 of 17 mobile payment apps by recommenders
Sweden's widely used mobile payment app for bank transfers between people; praised for free person-to-person payments. Main caveats: occasional downtime and fees.
Sweden's widely used mobile payment app for bank transfers between people; praised for free person-to-person payments. Main caveats: occasional downtime and fees.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 19
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 76%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 19 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 3.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Nationwide payments across Sweden
“Swish in Sweden, MobilePay in Denmark/Finland, iDEAL in the Netherlands, etc.”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Hardware Attestation as Monopoly Enabler” “the equivalent in Sweden, Swish, is also almost default there”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment” “In Sweden we have Swish for domestic transfers”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment” - Comment from 27 Feb 2026 in “MitID, Denmarks sole digital ID, has been down for over an hour and counting”
Free or flat-fee person-to-person payments
“Swish is always 2 SEK not matter the amount, for party-to-party without the "checkout" feature, it's always free”
Comment from 15 Oct 2026 in “Why Sweden is abandoning its cashless society” “it both enables p2p payments (that Visa/Mastercard doesn't offer)”
Comment from 3 Oct 2026 in “European payments groups join forces to challenge US dominance” Works reliably for users
“BankID, Swish and Swedbank's app work fine for me on GOS”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information” “works perfectly well for me”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “GrapheneOS will remain usable by anyone without requiring personal information”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Occasional downtime reported
“It kind of works and Swish does too, unless they're down which happens every now and then”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard” “Swish (Sweden) sees quite a lot of downtime.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun” Fees seen as high
“Usually these systems raise their fees after being established, sometimes even higher than Visa/Mastercard.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard” “The Swish system is private, which means that the fees are as high as the market can bear.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard” “The fee is 2 SEK ($0.2) per transaction - of course it's for tax evasion reasons”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Why Sweden is abandoning its cashless society” - Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard”
Operator unwilling to interoperate
“So making it compatible would potentially hurt the business of Swish.”
Comment from 8 May 2026 in “Brazil's Pix Payment System Faces Pressure from Visa and Mastercard” “But Swish aren't particularly interested in playing an active part.”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment”
Other mobile payment apps people recommend
The four most recommended other mobile payment apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wero | 84 | 96 | 47% | 11 | — | — |
| Apple Pay | 73 | 48 | 60% | 12 | — | — |
| Apple Wallet | 58 | 63 | 48% | 10 | — | — |
| Google Pay | 26 | 33 | 44% | 11 | — | — |
| Swish payment appThis page | 19 | 6 | 76% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
26 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Swish is always 2 SEK not matter the amount, for party-to-party without the "checkout" feature, it's always free”
“The fee is 2 SEK ($0.2) per transaction - of course it's for tax evasion reasons”
“it both enables p2p payments (that Visa/Mastercard doesn't offer)”
“it’s impossible for non Swede (or someone without Swedish bank account and/or mobile phone number)”
“Swish seems to be written and backed by actual humans instead of just being vibe coded”
“the equivalent in Sweden, Swish, is also almost default there”
“But Swish aren't particularly interested in playing an active part.”
“In Sweden we have Swish for domestic transfers”
“Swish in Sweden, MobilePay in Denmark/Finland, iDEAL in the Netherlands, etc.”
“So making it compatible would potentially hurt the business of Swish.”
“It kind of works and Swish does too, unless they're down which happens every now and then”
“is more expensive than cards for smaller transactions (below 15 euros)”
“Usually these systems raise their fees after being established, sometimes even higher than Visa/Mastercard.”
“The Swish system is private, which means that the fees are as high as the market can bear.”
“Just installed, looks great.”
“built around really elegant touchpad gestures”
“works perfectly well for me”
“BankID, Swish and Swedbank's app work fine for me on GOS”
“as well as nation wide payment system Swish”
“Swish exists since 2012, it's about time we get a pan-European solution.”
“My favourite solution on macOS is an app called Swish which lets you do trackpad/Magic Mouse gestures to throw windows into corners, along edges, etc.”
“Europe has always been on the forefront (Swish, Vipps, ...)”
“Swish (Sweden) sees quite a lot of downtime.”
“I just realised I don't re-size windows anymore”
“He did not mention that Swish requires IOS or Android.”
“copy paste it to https://swish.swi-prolog.org/ and see if it runs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.