December 13, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – The Swedish government will consider the option of switching the country to a digital version of the national currency. Bloomberg writes about this with reference to the Minister of Finance of Sweden, Per Bolund.
Sweden to explore digital currency transition in two years
The study on the launch of the digital currency, initiated on Friday, will be completed by the end of November 2022, the minister said. The initiative will be overseen by Anna Kinberg Batra, former chairman of the finance committee of the Swedish Central Bank.
Sweden has long been in the process of digitizing its economy. The country's central bank is actively piloting the digital crown based on blockchain technology.
Read also: Sweden on its Way to Become First Cashless Country
Stefan Ingves, chairman of the Bank of Sweden, previously said that any decision to issue an e-krona should be made exclusively at the political level. At the same time, the Minister of Finance of Sweden emphasizes that the digital payments market should function as safely and accessible to everyone as possible.
“Depending on how the digital currency is designed and what technologies are used, this could have serious implications for the entire financial system,” Bolund said.
In October, the Bank of Sweden found that the country's cash use had fallen to its lowest level on record. The coronavirus pandemic has been a key factor in reducing the use of cash.
The inevitability of a sovereign digital currency was previously announced by the outgoing head of a large American bank Citibank, Michael Corbat. According to Korbat, a sovereign digital currency is "inevitable", but the speed of such an asset's emergence directly depends on the nature of such a currency.
Think we missed something? Let us know in the comment section below.