A Resilient Sweden Needs Cash
Apr 17, 2024
Sveriges Riksbank—Sweden’s Central Bank—has followed up last year’s call for pro-cash legislation with proposals to improve access to physical money and ensure it is widely accepted, to ensure payments are resilient ‘in the event of peacetime crises and states of heightened alert’.
In late 2023, the Riksbank was mandated by the government to analyse the payment market and take a position on the need for ‘certain means of payment to be legal tender.’ The bank’s resulting advice was that the position of cash be strengthened in legislation, and this year it is recommending an expansion into government inquiries around cash usage.
Payments must work for everyone… We need legislation to ensure cash can be used to pay, and banks must ensure more customers have access to payment accounts.
In another proposal, the Riksbank says that it and other banks and authorities should take a role in cash transportation to and from retail outlets, ensuring good access and reasonable prices. Furthermore, it says banks should be required to accept cash deposits from private individuals, which is currently not the case.
To encourage broad cash acceptance, it suggests banks could modify limits on how much cash companies and associations can deposit in account, given deposit machines often have ‘excessively low limits’ that make it challenging to deposit daily earnings.
Overall, it believes ‘the state, including the Riksbank, and the private sector need to do more, not least to ensure that everyone can pay, including in the event of peacetime crises and states of heightened alert.’
[National resilience] requires, among other things, stronger legal protection for cash payments. For payments to remain safe, efficient and accessible, banks need to continue to prioritise modernising their infrastructure and making their payment services more inclusive.
These recommendations come hot on the heels of Norway’s government recognising the importance of cash to payment choice and national resilience, announcing its intention to explore legislation to ensure citizens always have the option of paying within banknotes and coins.