What do these trends mean, whether for central banks or the economy at large? According to Skringsley, a future may be coming “where people and business can’t pay each other with the ‘default’ option – cash.” Additional factors include e-commerce expansion and more remittances. While tech improvements may be the main driver, higher expectations from end users also play a role, said Skingsley. But this has changed – especially in Sweden, where instant and cross-border payments have become ‘the new normal’. Until recently, the banking world saw these as a niche service of limited utility. The real figure is probably lower due to the COVID pandemic, she added.Īnother trend catching the attention of central banks is the uptick in instant digital payments. “Last year, however, we saw cash in less than 10 per cent of those payments.” “In 2020, cash made up 40 per cent of point-of-sale payments,” explained Riksbank First Deputy Governor Cecilia Skingskley in her opening remarks at the DC 3 conference hosted by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
#Swedish coinage how to
The country’s central bank, the Riksbank, upon observing the trend, started investigating how to issue a digital complement to cash. While many countries have witnessed a downturn in cash use, Sweden’s case in the last decade was more striking than most. More than 150 years after the world’s first electronic fund transfer was issued by Western Union, digital tech innovation continues to revolutionize the world of payments.