In the last decade, cash has become a reviled means of payment in Sweden, which is mainly associated with crime. Anyone who doesn’t have a walker has been viewed with a certain amount of suspicion when they pull a thousand out of their wallet to pay at the till.
The only contact children have with small coins is when they are exchanged for a pledge receipt. Few Swedes these days can answer with a straight arm who adorns the five hundred patch.
The Swedes are actually – together with the Norwegians – the people who use cash as a means of payment to the lowest extent. Only every tenth purchase made in store is a cash payment.
Therefore, it feels strange when Sweden’s Riksbank now urges all households to have SEK 1,000 available at home. Then it is easy to panic. Such tendencies were seen, among other things, in 2022, shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Columns of smoke rise in Tehran after attacks on the Iranian capital. But that is no reason to empty the bank account.
Foto: Mohsen Ganji /AP/TT
Trust in Sweden’s Riksbank tends to follow economic fluctuations. It is lower right at the beginning of an economic crisis, but increases markedly as soon as the crisis has stabilized, and then increases gradually until the crisis subsides (SOM Institute 2024).
At the beginning of the pandemic, when mortgage rates were at their lowest, only 8 percent of Swedes had low confidence in the Riksbank. Two years later, when interest rates had skyrocketed, the figure had risen to 20 percent. Now confidence is gradually increasing again. The same trend was seen during the financial crisis that started in 2007.
It’s reasonable for people to react that way when their personal finances are affected as much as they are when they get less money in their wallets. Those feelings, and the frustration, you have a right to. On the other hand, it is important to keep a cool head and have faith in the willingness to pay that already exists in the industries that sell essential goods.
All the major grocery chains and pharmacies have advanced solutions to handle so-called offline payments if the internet is down, and pretty much all of them accept cash. These are done simply by inserting the payment card into the payment box, instead of touching it with the chip on the top of the card.
Most accept Swish payments, and support payments from various card companies. Many Swedes have these opportunities without even having reflected on it.
Johanna Schreiber is a writer at Liberala news agency.
Photo: Liberal News Agency
SEK 1,000 sounds like a small amount. If the Strait of Hormuz continues to be blocked, within a couple of weeks there won’t even be enough for a full tank of petrol.
But the Riksbank’s recommendation must be seen as a larger whole, which also includes recommendations from, for example, the Swedish Agency for Social Security and Preparedness. For several years now, they have had recommendations on what type of food is good to have at home, and how to prepare for, for example, power cuts.
It can feel safe to have the money hidden in the mattress. But it’s not 1942 anymore. The payment solutions are more, better, safer. Of course, having a few thousand notes at home, instead of a single one, can feel safer. But emptying the ATMs of money is not a solution to the problems we are facing right now.
