speech date : 06 / 11 / 2018 speaker : stefan ingves venue : di framtidens betalningar sveriges riksbank se - 103 37 stockholm ( brunkebergstorg 11 ) tel + 46 8 787 00 00 fax + 46 8 21 05 31 registratorn @ riksbank. se www. riksbank. se the e - krona and the payments of the future when did you last pay with cash? i suspect it was rather a long time ago. in sweden, the riksbank's money has been used for 350 years, so it entails a historical shift if you and all of us, completely stop using central bank money to make payments. today we can buy food, pay our bills and receive medical prescriptions without needing to leave our homes. the more goods and services we purchase digitally, the more we need rapid and simple payment services that are adapted to our new way of shopping. is it a problem that cash is being used less and less? yes, in a way it is. if the riksbank is to fulfil its mandate, to ensure that sweden has a payment system that is both safe and efficient, the means of payment we issue must also be used. i believe that the arguments that once led to the central banks being allowed to issue money are still relevant, it is only the technology that has changed. this is why we at the riksbank have decided to build a pilot version of a new type of riksbank money – a digital krona, or e - krona. today i intend to explain why we are doing this and how we imagine it might look. for those who are interested in more details, there is a newly - released report available to be downloaded from our website. 1 why is an e - krona necessary? the riksbank has been issuing money since the 17th century. 2 and they have formed the linchpin of our payment system. but now cash is being marginalised in our society. not only many restaurants and cafes, but also many shops, no longer accept cash. you cannot use cash to pay for parking your car, to pay your taxes or to buy a bus ticket. several large department stores are testing cash - free stores. we must therefore prepare ourselves for a future where almost all payments are made electronically. and then the question arises whether it would make any dif - 1 see sveriges riksbank

speech date : 31 may 2017 speaker : deputy governor cecilia skingsley venue : seb, stockholm sveriges riksbank se - 103 37 stockholm ( brunkebergstorg 11 ) tel + 46 8 787 00 00 fax + 46 8 21 05 31 registratorn @ riksbank. se www. riksbank. se the central bank in an innovative and fast - paced world1 on 22 july 1668, a stockholm court sentenced a bank director to death. the bank director ’ s name was johan palmstruch, and he was the founder of the first bank in sweden, stockholms banco. a few years earlier, stockholms banco had suffered an acute liquidity shortage when a confidence crisis arose regarding the banknotes issued by the bank. when the bank was unable to pay its depositors, it was simply taken over by the then riksdag of the estates, and later became the precursor to sveriges riksbank. palmstruch was thus condemned to death unless he reimbursed the bank's creditors, which he of course was unable to do. the council of the realm eventually converted the death sentence into a prison sentence. and later, after the chancellor magnus gabriel de la gardie rushed to the defence of the deposed banker, palmstruch was finally granted a pardon. de la gardie also happened to be one of the bank's largest borrowers. it was possibly the chancellor's guilty conscience that made him advocate milder treatment of palmstruch. not long after he was released, more precisely on 8 march 1671, palmstruch died of natural causes. 2 a banking crisis every thirty years with this historical retrospective, i would like to remind you that as long as there have been banks, there have also been financial crises. and when financial crises have arisen, the state has often had to rush to the rescue in one way or another. in sweden alone, severe banking crises have occurred no less than nine times in the past 250 years. 3 this entails, on average, one crisis every thirty years. 1 thank you to johan molin, who has helped me write this speech. valuable comments were received from mats anderson, christina nordh berntsson, sara edholm, david forsman, mattias hector, martin w. johansson, gabriel soderberg and anders vredin. see wetterberg ( 2009 ). 3 see, for example,