Visa, MasterCard and American Express (all U.S. companies) recently announced a special payment classification for firearms, paving the way to further controlling how people spend their money, and bringing the west one step closer to tyranny. This comes after Apple Pay was disconnected overnight in Russia, over the Ukraine defensive, causing substantial disruptions across the country, including with public transit in Moscow during the morning rush.

This tells us that American companies are not reliable, and can arbitrarily modify or withhold services on a whim. Some countries, like Norway, have therefore taken discreet steps over the past few years to end any dependency on the United States, the big tech, and their payment systems.

It started with Norway developing its own national payment system, Bank Axept, which can be used in conjunction with Visa and MasterCard overseas, but remains its very own thing in Norway. DNB, the largest bank in Norway, also rejected any affiliation with Apple Pay for any of its payment cards, introducing instead a locally made solution: Vipps. Essentially an exceptionally simple, easy and convenient way to pay for pretty much anything anywhere in the country with a cell phone (Veldig, veldig enkelt indeed).

SpareBank1 went one step further recently by introducing their newest payment system designed to compete with both Vipps and ApplePay: Mikrokort (or MicroCard).