Reference News Network reported on December 13 that Swedish media said that Sweden is studying the use of its own national cryptocurrency, and may become the world’s first cashless country.
Sweden, a Nordic country, may become the first country to have no cash, according to the website of Spain’s The Economist on December 11. Sweden announced the pilot test of e-krona in May this year, thus becoming one of the first countries in the world to consider issuing national cryptocurrencies.
Subsequently, the Swedish government announced that it would start to study the feasibility of using digital currency in the national financial system from December 11.
Per Borund, Swedish Minister of Financial Markets and Housing, said that the feasibility study for the operation of digital currency launched on the 11th is expected to be completed by the end of November 2022, and in order to achieve this transition, “it is essential that the digital payment market can operate safely and benefit everyone”.
Anna Hinberg Bartra, former chairman of the Finance Committee of the Central Bank of Sweden, will lead the committee in this large-scale research project.
Meanwhile, with the assistance of the U.S. management and information consulting firm Accenture, the country’s main monetary authorities continue the e-krona pilot project and hope that the e-currency can be based on the same technology that supports other cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.
However, Stefan Inves, the governor of the Swedish Central Bank, remains cautious about the future of such e-money, and said that any decision on whether to issue e-krona needs to be made at the political level, because “how to design digital currency and what technology to use may weigh on the entire financial system. Great impact”.
Sweden’s central bank estimates that the country’s cash use fell to an all-time low in October this year, because the coronavirus epidemic has prompted people to further abandon cash use.
It pointed out that less than 10% of Swedish payments are made in cash. The Bank for International Settlements pointed out in 2018 that Sweden has the lowest proportion of cash used in the world.
