Mastercard is introducing new requirements across its European network that will allow cards to keep working even when power or network connections fail.
Mastercard is introducing new requirements across its European network that will allow cards to keep working even when power or network connections fail.
From February 2027, all newly issued Mastercard cards in Europe will be enabled for offline payments.
But by the month of May, 2027, companies and merchants will need to install the new systems on all of their payment terminal machines. Once this system is fully implemented, consumers will feel free to pay for their daily life needs whenever they experience power outages at supermarkets, grocery shops, gas stations, or drug stores.
The decision is a direct response to the major blackout that hit Spain and Portugal in April 2025. At that time an estimated 55 million people suddenly lost the ability to make digital payments. The incident highlighted how vulnerable modern payment infrastructure has become during widespread outages.
Offline payments work by securely storing spending limits on the card’s chip. If a terminal loses its connection, the transaction can be approved locally, up to a maximum of €200 per transaction. The specific limit is set in advance by the cardholder’s bank.
When the connection is restored, the transaction data is submitted for clearing. This approach leaves risk control with the issuing banks, which determine the allowed threshold, while still enabling merchants to continue accepting cards when real-time authorization is unavailable.
Mastercard has already successfully deployed the technology in Denmark, Sweden, Estonia, and Latvia. During a recent storm in Latvia, card payments continued in shops running on local generators. In Denmark in spring 2026, a technical outage isolated terminals from the wider payment system, yet Mastercard’s crisis procedures allowed many transactions to proceed at critical merchants.
After coordination with partners, nationals, regulators, and central banks, the company has decided to roll the new capability out widely across Europe. The rollout will be gradual, starting with card issuance rules and followed in three months by terminal requirements.
Since the terminal requirement applies to only new and replacement devices, the point of sale will be expanded gradually as merchants update their terminals.
Over the past 12 months Mastercard has already taken steps to strengthen the resilience of Europe’s payment networks, including investment in local infrastructure and cybersecurity. The new offline payment requirements are a logical continuation of that work.
Brice van de Walle, Executive Vice President of Core Payments at Mastercard, underlined the importance of keeping everyday payments running in emergencies.
“When the power or network goes down, people still need to buy food, fuel and medicine,” he said. “We’ve seen that offline payments can make a real difference. By expanding this technology across Europe, we can help people keep paying for the things they need, even when the unexpected happens.”
Experts note that as the role of cash declines, dependence on digital infrastructure continues to grow. In Denmark, for example, cash accounted for only 9% of payments in physical trade in 2025 (down from 11% in 2023 and 23% in 2017), while more than 90% of all transactions are already digital. In the United Kingdom cash represented just 8% of payments (compared with 45% a decade earlier). In Ireland the share of cash transactions fell to 5% in 2026. In the Nordic countries cash is used even less frequently, around 25% in Sweden.
The offline payment capability will apply to both credit and debit Mastercard cards. Existing cards issued before February 2027 will not automatically receive the function; it will be available only on newly issued plastic.
Terminals will also be updated gradually, so full network readiness will take time. Nevertheless, from early 2027, holders of new Mastercard cards across Europe will gain an extra layer of protection against sudden outages.
In this way Mastercard is taking another step to ensure that the payment system remains operational even during serious infrastructure disruptions. Experience in the Nordic countries has shown that the technology works in practice. Now it is being scaled across the entire European market.
