Sweden’s central bank threatens banks with laws to protect access to cash

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In a written notice responding to a cash request from the Swedish Ministry of Finance, the central bank states: “Regulation is needed to ensure that operators legally obliged to accept cash have access to functioning daily receipts and petty cash services.”

Banks in Sweden, known as the world’s first near-cashless society, have largely stopped providing cash services to businesses. Instead, functional services for daily receipts and petty cash are currently offered almost exclusively by the cash transport company Loomis AB and exclusively on a commercial basis. According to Riksbank, banks need to take more responsibility to ensure long-term access to services that provide protection in the event of a failure of digital payment systems.

Some banks already have a legal obligation to ensure that companies and authorities can deposit sufficient daily income. According to Riksbank, the legal requirement needs to be strengthened and clarified as the services offered by banks are “inadequate”.

Banks have chosen to meet these requirements by equipping deposit machines with limits that are too low for many businesses, the central bank said. The Riksbank also wants urgent measures to ensure access to petty cash, saying that this service has deteriorated significantly as more banks have stopped their manual cash services.

“The measures we propose in our written communication are necessary to enable people who need cash to do so, but also to strengthen our civil willingness to make payments,” says Christina Wejshammar, head of the Riksbank’s payments department. “Many businesses” continue to accept cash, but in practice they would not be able to do so without these services. In addition, new cash acceptance requirements for operators selling essential goods must maintain day-to-day receipts and petty cash services nationwide. In this way, the banks contribute to a cash chain that functions under normal conditions and therefore also in crisis situations.”