In Sweden, less than 10% of payments for any kind of commercial transaction already take place in physical currency - banknotes or coins. The figure, which makes Sweden the most "cashless company in the world" was calculated by Riksbank, the Swedish central bank.
And according to the institute, the process of replacing physical currency with electronic money has undergone a further acceleration due to the pandemic. But now the country seems ready to take a further leap forward and considers the possibility of introducing a digital currency, based on internet protocols, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Ripple and many others.
The Swedish Finance Minister Per Bolund has indeed stated that a first evaluation of this possibility will be completed by the end of November 2022. The study group will be led by Anna Kinberg Batra, former president of the Riksbank financial system control committee, therefore by an institutional and leading figure. Sweden is therefore one of the very first countries to consider introducing a digital currency.
The pilot project for the introduction of a "digital crown" already started by Riksbank in collaboration with the consulting firm Accenture demonstrates that this is a project that has already started and not just a future hypothesis. The currency would be based on the same blockchain technology underlying other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. According to an article recently published in Bloomberg, Swedish central bank governor Stefan Ingves said that "any decision on the possible issuance of an" e-krone "will still have to be taken at a political level.
From a governmental point of view, Minister Bolund stressed that:
it is crucial that the digital payments market can function in absolute safety and that it is accessible to anyone. In fact, depending on how the digital currency is designed and the technologies used, the consequences on the system financial issues can be enormous.
Waiting to see what the developments of this initiative will be, the Bank for International Settlements (Bri) of Basel has declared that Sweden is the country with the most developed "cashless" economy in the world in terms of percentage of electronic money use. on the country's GDP.
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