future, there is a risk of a fairly substantial correction in expectations and prices further ahead. the consequence of such a correction might be that the economy developed weakly over a long period of time. it would also have effects on inflation. it may be necessary to take these risks into account in monetary policy decisions in a different way than in the normal approach, where the forecasts for inflation and the real economy for the next two years serve as the foundation. this can be done, for instance, by beginning a phase of interest rate increases slightly earlier than would otherwise have been the case. of course, the hope is that this will contribute to a smoother adjustment process for house prices and thereby to a more stable development of inflation and the real economy. let me say, to round off my contribution on this subject, that there are some questions here that are still debated among central banks and within the academic world. as yet, there is no consensus as to how monetary policy should be used to manage risks related to rapidly rising house and asset prices. i would also like to emphasise that, all in all, i do not see any major differences between the riksbank ’ s view and the authors ’ view. the approach we have chosen has in practice only meant a marginally different timing of our interest rate decisions. given this, the fairly strong focus in the evaluation on the riksbank ’ s way of managing house prices appears slightly exaggerated, but i agree with the criticism that we should have communicated our actions more clearly. conclusion let me conclude my comments on the report. it is an important document that the authors have produced. i have put some time into arguing against a couple of the proposals, but i once again would like to emphasise that i agree with the authors on most of what they have written. we will of course closely examine the criticism that has been raised. however, i hope that the fact that the report is critical on a few points will not overshadow the overall message – namely that swedish monetary policy has worked well. thank you!

services are widely available, not just for households but also for retailers and companies. there are more than 20 million cards in sweden and just over two hundred thousand card terminals. recently mobile card terminals and opportunities to accept card payments by mobile phone have also arisen. this chart, which shows how often households say they have not been able to pay by card or cash, illustrates the high level of acceptance among payees. a large majority say that they are unable to pay by either card or cash less than once a month. close to atms and good internet connections cash should not only be possible to use in shops. households also need to be able to withdraw cash and the retailer has to be able to deposit his daily takings. this makes the physical distance to service points and atms important. the average distance for a shopowner to the nearest service point to deposit his daily takings is 6 km for sweden as a whole and more than 10 km for jamtland county, which has the longest distances. the distances for cash withdrawals are less ; around 4 km for the country as a whole and around 7 km in norrbotten county. for electronic payments, access to the internet is the equivalent of geographical proximity. it is also becoming increasingly important for both households and companies to have good internet connections to be able to make and receive payments. in sweden as a whole, around 500 households and companies are unable to have access to the internet. given that we are a sparsely - populated, but geographically large, country, this is nevertheless an impressively small figure. of course, what i have just said does not mean that individual shops and households may have much longer distances, that the fees paid by a shop - owner for card payments or for handling daily takings can be perceived as high or that it is not a problem for those who are unable to have access to the internet. i shall shortly return to the challenges we have identified on the market, but before i do so i would like to say a few words about current trends and developments. trends and changes sweden is in the forefront i said earlier that sweden is in the forefront with regard to using other payment services than cash, and this is illustrated in this chart, which summarises the situation in a few selected countries. 5 the picture that appears is that use of cash is much lower in sweden than in most other countries and that the use of cards, primarily bank cards, is higher. the situation is roughly the same in