Standardisation as a Competitive Advantage
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
At the February meetup, Erik Marcus Torkildsen gave a status update on the "Standardisation and Interoperability" initiative, one of the most concrete workstreams currently underway in Nordic Initiative. His message was clear: Nordic retailers must move faster, and they must move together.
"Nordic retailers have to cooperate on matters where we do not compete. We have a shared interest in ensuring efficient payment and identification systems. We need to keep costs down. That gives us collective competitiveness and a socioeconomic value for the society," he says.
From Experience to Execution
Erik Marcus Torkildsen has spent years at the intersection of retail, identity and payments, working within leading global payment and technology environments before taking on his current role as Manager of Identity and Payment at Rema 1000 (Reitan Retail). He brings both operational depth and strategic perspective to the Nordic Initiative advisory board, where he serves as Chair of the Payment Advisory Board.
For Torkildsen, the answer for future industry competitiveness lies in standardisation. Not as a bureaucratic exercise, but as a prerequisite for innovation and resilience. He points to historical successes like BankAxept and the postal giro system as proof that standardisation is key to increased efficiency and competitiveness.
"Standardisation gives us the flexibility to act on what we do not yet know. No one wants to be the next Kodak."
The Nordic Advantage at Risk
The Nordic retailers, he argues, are not starting from scratch. The region is already ahead in customer journeys and willing to invest in technology. But fragmentation threatens to erode that advantage.
"We who live on an iceberg in the Nordics have to run faster and work smarter."
Interoperability
Through Nordic Initiative's strategic partnership with nexo Standards, announced last year, Torkildsen has helped push for interoperability as a concrete deliverable, not just a principle.
"The nexo Standards partnership prioritises interoperability, creating merchant systems that work seamlessly together regardless of provider. This will contribute to a more robust and cost-effective critical infrastructure that benefits society as a whole, while simplifying collaboration across national borders," he said at the time of the announcement.
Looking ahead, his focus is firmly on translating shared insight into merchant-facing requirements. The next step is identifying the core needs of merchants and turning them into concrete demands that can be written directly into RFPs.
He also highlighted Apple, which had payment representatives present at the meetup, as a player worth watching closely, noting their strong customer focus as a factor that makes them particularly relevant to follow in the period ahead.
