our nordic neighbour countries. i mentioned earlier that sweden is a technology - friendly country. we have an extensive infrastructure for telecommunications and a high percentage of households have internet in their homes, are familiar with technology and have smart phones and tablets. moreover, there is a high degree of confidence and trust between households, companies, payment intermediaries and public authorities. this chart shows an aggregate of all of these factors. it is the world economic forum ’ s ranking of countries according to how well they are situated if we look at cards and cash, it is unfortunately difficult to find good and comparable statistics. the information on other countries than sweden is often a few years old, and the exact percentages should be taken with a pinch of salt. bis central bankers ’ speeches with regard to utilising possibilities offered by information and communication technology. we can see that sweden is highly placed and has been for a long time. of course, this creates the right conditions for the payments market to develop. changes also create difficulties it is positive that the market for payments is developing and can meet the new payment requirements that arise. payments are increasingly based on technology and this trend will probably continue and expand. however, at the same time this development leads to new problems and tensions that need to be overcome. the problems we have identified include the following : households and companies need even better access to different payment services. the capacity in the mobile network is not always adequate to manage temporary peaks and it may then be difficult, for instance, to make a card payment for a hot dog and soft drink at a sports event attended by several thousand people. some groups in society, such as the visually impaired and very short people, can face problems as card terminals and atms are not always adapted to their specific needs. other problems concern to a greater extent the tensions that may arise in relation to new payment services. households may also have access to the technology needed to use a new payment service, but nevertheless prefer to use the old technology. as the latter technology becomes less accessible, tension may arise when the individual feels that his or her needs are not met. for instance, an elderly person may want to continue depositing and withdrawing cash over the counter in a bank or to pay payments there, but as fewer bank branches handle cash manually ; this is becoming more difficult in practice. there is also a risk that the market will become fragmented and by this i mean that there may be a number of different payment solutions, but that none of them

. an example of such “ one - time inflation ” is indirect tax hikes. if price disruptions are judged to have merely temporary effects on inflation and do not affect expectations of future inflation, it would imply unnecessary real economic instability to prevent the price increases from having an impact on the consumer price index. question 6 : doesn ’ t the riksbank itself “ talk up ” inflation? now and then the criticism is made that the riksbank stresses the risks of inflation in the economy and is thereby guilty of “ talking up ” inflation. when this is carefully done the riksbank – say some of the critics – can use the expected higher inflation ( that we ourselves have created ) as an argument for making the interest rate increases we have wanted to make all along. this type of criticism was common last autumn, for example, when the riksbank spoke in various connections about its inflation outlook and explained that interest rate increases might be necessary. i have the following answer to these criticisms. to begin with, the riksbank ’ s focus on inflation developments is entirely natural. it is undoubtedly our task to show clearly the reasons for our decisions. without a candid accounting of monetary policy from the riksbank ’ s perspective it would be more difficult for the political decision - makers and the general public to evaluate monetary policy and our fulfilment of our objective. think what type of debate we would have and how monetary policy would be seen if the riksbank only made its decisions without commenting at all on the outlook for inflation and without giving reasons for its policies. thus the need for the riksbank to speak about inflation is obvious. naturally it cannot be ruled out that in doing so it will influence households and businesses in their views on price developments, however our influence should not be exaggerated. the cause - and - effect relationship is rather the reverse : the riksbank reacts to inflationary developments, which in turn are determined by a great number of decisions by businesses and households. however, of course the riksbank does not react in a mechanical manner to a measured change in inflation expectations. the riksbank currently monitors a number of indicators of future inflation developments and, responses to its surveys about inflation expectations are just one of many. by way of conclusion there is reason to call attention to the fact that inflation expectations to an ever greater degree are being guided by the inflation objective and not by our or others ’ discussions of the risks of inflation. the signs of this are