examples of account - based means of payment. they meet all of the functions that money shall have : they make use of the same arithmetical unit, their value is guaranteed by the riksbank ’ s monetary policy mandate and, as technological advances continues, these account - based systems offer increasingly efficient mediation of payments. account - based means of payment have since come to replace payments with banknotes and coins to an increasing extent right up to the current situation. nowadays, some account - based payments can also be made in real time, a property that only cash payments could boast once upon a time, when the payment was made after banknotes changed owners. 4 without cash, the general public loses access to central bank money if cash were to disappear completely, the general public would only have access to account - based private bank money. the banks, on the other hand, continue to have access to central bank money as they have accounts in the riksbank. so is this a problem? we return here to the central element of the monetary system mentioned earlier – confidence in the system. during normal times this is not a problem. the banks can normally offer a sufficiently high interest rate to attract investors. but in times of financial stress, which unfortunately occur with some regularity, both banks and the general public want access to the central bank ’ s money, which is free from credit risk. the deposit guarantee alleviates the problem of a lack of confidence but does not entirely resolve it. it is scarcely surprising that a central bank in the riksbank's situation needs to at least investigate whether the arguments that have historically been so important – that the central bank shall provide the general public with assets and means of payment free of credit risk – no longer have such great significance. is it the case that the general public no longer wants central bank money? or is it rather the case that it is only money made of pieces of paper ( or cotton ) that they no longer wish to hold in an increasingly digitalised world? if it is the latter, then it is the riksbank's duty to investigate the scope for issuing a digital alternative – an ekrona that the general public can hold. the questions that led to the riksbank's monopoly on issuing banknotes in 1904 arise again. but there are also other reasons for investigating a digital alternative payment in cash presuppose a chain of action that involves issuing, transporting, storage and distribution of banknotes and coins. it requires

have had spare capacity on the labour market since 2008. this is one of the reasons why inflation has been low in recent years. it also appears that inflation has in principle shown a downward trend since 2008. as the riksbank ’ s reporate changes have a major impact on inflation measured in terms of the cpi, it is in this context most relevant to look at inflation measured in terms of the cpif, that is the cpi with a fixed mortgage rate ( see figure 3 ). as can be seen in the figure, cpif inflation was around 3 per cent when the swedish economy was hit by the fall in demand at the end of 2008. it is now down to levels of around 1 per cent. the fact that sweden has a substantial surplus on its current account, as shown in figure 4, also indicates that domestic demand is relatively low. bis central bankers ’ speeches figure 4. current account as a percentage of gdp per cent - 2 - 2 - 4 - 4 spain - 6 - 6 ireland usa - 8 - 8 sweden - 10 - 10 source : imf weo, october 2012. the current account reflects the difference between the value of what is produced and the value of what is absorbed in the economy through consumption and investments. it also shows the difference between total saving and total investment in the economy. the fact that sweden has a surplus thus means that saving in sweden is higher than the level needed to fund swedish investments. an important reason why saving has been relatively high in sweden since the mid - 1990s is the relatively high level of financial saving in the public sector since the budget consolidation process carried out in connection with the crisis of the 1990s. another reason is that the swedish households also increased their saving in connection with this crisis. at the same time, the level of investment in sweden has been relatively low compared to that in other countries ( see figure 5 ). this is largely due to relatively low investments in housing. 2 see for example chapter 3 in vredin et al. ( 2012 ), report of the economic policy group 2012, “ simple rules, difficult times : does stabilisation policy need to be changed? ” bis central bankers ’ speeches figure 5. total investment as a share of gdp per cent 2001 - 2007 2008 - 2011 note. average value 2001 – 2007 and 2008 – 2010. source : imf weo, october 2012. the current account surplus has in fact decreased somewhat in recent years. it was approximately 9 per cent of gdp in 2008