The Swedish central bank, Riksbank has launched a review for e-krona on Friday as the country’s government is considering a transformation of the monetary system towards digital currency.
A recent Bloomberg report highlighted that Riksbank’s former Finance Committee Chairwoman will lead the review process, which is expected to be completed by the end of November 2022.
The Swedish Monetary Regulator Governor, Stefan Ingves, earlier said that any decision to introduce e-krona has to come from the political level.
The Swedish Economy is Ready for a Transformation
Sweden is already piloting e-Krona since the beginning of this year in a partnership with information technology giant, Accenture. The digital currency is issued on R3’s Corda Blockchain , a popular distributed ledger for private usage.
However, at that time, the central bank clarified that the pilot was only for the learning experience, and it had no intention to launch a digital currency.
While other major economies are struggling to come up with a viable option to launch a digital currency due to the dominant cash-based economy, Sweden has an advantage on that front.
Central bank research found that less than 10 percent of the settlements done in Sweden are in cash, and the ongoing pandemic has further boosted the usage of digital transactions.
“It’s crucial that the digitalized Payments market functions safely, and that it’s available to everybody,” Per Bolund, Sweden’s Financial Markets Minister, said. “Depending on how a digital currency is designed and which technologies are used, it can have large consequences for the entire financial system.”
Meanwhile, the eurozone is considering a digital euro launch but is still checking the feasibility, both technical and economical. Countries like France have already rolled out several pilots to test the digital euro.
