Fear of blackouts and war: cash is celebrating a comeback in Sweden

Now Stockholm is doing the role backwards. In the future, grocery stores and pharmacies in Sweden will have to accept banknotes and coins again. A new law stipulates this. Cash is also celebrating in Norway a small comeback.

The background is the governments’ fear of Internet sabotage, blackouts or even an attack by Russia. The Swedish Riksbank recommends: All adults should always have 1,000 kronor in cash (approx. 90 euros) at home. In the event of a crisis, this would be enough to buy the essentials. But many Swedes no longer have 1,000 crowns in cash at home. You pay exclusively by card or via Swish, a purely Swedish online payment system.

“Due to the new geopolitical situation, cash has become more important again. It’s about security, about the fact that there are payment options that work even if, for example, the Internet or the power supply fails,” says Elin Ritola from the Swedish Riksbank.

Austria welcomes law

The new Swedish cash law has numerous exceptions – for example for supermarkets without cash registers manned by people. Merchants are also not required to accept more than 25 coins, and there are still no clear sanctions for violations.

Those responsible at the Oesterreichische Nationalbank are still happy about the cash signal from the north. It strengthens their position in the fight for cash and the choice between cash and plastic money.

Matthias Schrothresponsible head of department at the OeNB, says to the KURIER: “We welcome the fact that Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Norway have reconsidered their previous strategy and consciously want to strengthen the use of cash in everyday life again. Cash should continue to play an important role as a means of payment in daily payment transactions. What is crucial is to ensure freedom of choice of means of payment – whether cash payment, payment with the future digital euro or another digital means of payment.”

Offline solutions

In addition to the new obligation to accept cash in Sweden, the Scandinavians are working on offline payment systems. These are cards with PIN codes that are supposed to work as a backup even if power and internet fail. The likelihood of disruption has increased as the geopolitical situation has changed.

“There is a war in Europe and in the context of the war there are all sorts of hybrid influence and intimidation, which could include cutting off internet connections,” says Tuomas Valimaki of the Bank of Finland.