Denmark Readies Emergency Reserve Bank to Fight Cyberattacks
To counter major cyber threats, Danmarks Nationalbank is pioneering an offline emergency payment system.
This article appears in the July/August issue of Global Finance Magazine.
Danmarks Nationalbank, the Danish central bank, has launched a financial systems security project to establish a Dormant Emergency Bank (DEB) to serve as a robust reserve bank in the event of a massive cyberattack against a large banking institution or the wider banking infrastructure in Denmark.
The DEB proposal forms a central part of Danmarks Nationalbank’s Emergency Preparedness for Critical Financial Sector Activities in Extreme Scenarios (EP-CFSA-ES) strategic plan announced in December 2025. The plan’s bank emergency solution would enable businesses and the public to continue using payment cards, receiving salaries, and transferring money in the event of a significant cyberattack that immobilizes key financial institutions and the national banking infrastructure.
The DEB would provide the Danish economy with an additional layer of cyber protection, according to Ulrik Nødgaard, governor of Danmarks Nationalbank. In the event of a hyper-scale cyberattack paralyzing a major Danish bank, the proposed backup DEB platform solution would activate to ensure Danish businesses and society “continued to function normally” until the cyberthreat recedes, Nødgaard said.
Building a Contingency Net
The EP-CFSA-ES plan envisages DEB operating as a decentralized emergency bank prioritized to secure Danish society’s payment systems against a massive and prolonged AI-driven cyberattack.
The level of threat from cybercriminals in the EP-CFSA-ES plan covers attacks that specifically result in the prolonged immobilization of banks’ IT infrastructure, a scenario that could disrupt the ability of Danish consumers and businesses to conduct normal banking transactions.
The EP-CFSA-ES plan also includes a Card Payment Contingency (CPC) facility, enabling high street stores to keep trading during cyber-related IT outages. CPC lets consumers pay for goods and services with physical cards and mobile wallets — Vipps, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Dankort, Mastercard, and Visa — for up to seven days. Now being piloted nationwide, the system is expected to be fully operational at grocery chains and pharmacies by year-end 2026.
The CPC system works by letting store payment terminals process and store transactions offline; once reconnected, payments settle automatically with customer banks, Nødgaard said. “The technical solution developed resolves all the key issues around a significant IT outage,” he added.
Gerard O’Dwyer is a contributing writer based in Finland.
