The Swedish Central Bank - Better Than The Bank of England ?

The Sveriges riksbank is the Central Bank of Sweden.

Sweden was meant to be “cashless” by now - Visa and Mastercard have been praying for this for the last 20 years - but the Swedish Central Bank and Government have realised the folly of such a course of action.

The Sveriges riksbank now recommends the Swedish public keep cash at home to guard against inevitable systems failures, including via hacking.

Also the Central Bank makes clear that the Swedish public should use cash - “The general public is also encouraged to use cash at regular intervals during normal times to keep the cash systems running.”

The Central Bank has indicated previously that obliging businesses to accept cash is a natural extension to recommending the Swedish public keep cash at home and using cash regularly.

Visa and Mastercard have gone very quiet about Sweden all of a sudden ….

Meantime, here in the UK, ZERO from the Bank of England on the same subjects as addressed by the Swedish Central Bank.

No tentacle of Government - HM Treasury, Financial Conduct Authority or Payment Systems Regulator - has anything to say about keeping cash at home or regularly using it. Nor will any UK bank or their playthings - LINK Scheme Ltd and Cash Access UK - make any positive statement about cash, including about the need to keep it at home to protect against systems failures and to use it regularly.

Instead, we get the pap served up by LINK Scheme Ltd yesterday about cash acceptance, which induced falsely dramatic headlines and patchy reporting, reporting which failed to reveal, for example, that just across the Channel in France “cashless” is banned by law.

The headline yesterday should have been “ Nearly 80% of British Businesses Continue to Accept Cash” - BUT that would have been too positive for the anti-cash vested interests, who specialise in creating negativity about all things cash.

Similarly, every arm of government and the banks in the UK keep on waffling about total “digital financial inclusion”.

This is as realistic as promising to put an end to World Poverty - AND ignores CHOICE. IT IS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

As the Chinese government, for all the sophistication of their payment - and public tracking - systems has realised.

Does anyone think the Chinese government WANT to have cash circulating?

Of course not!

BUT they recognise it is vital for the Chinese public and economy, so “cashless” is banned by order of the Chinese Central Bank - and fines imposed on those businesses that try to dodge their obligations.

These are the FACTS- not the pap served up in the UK by the anti-cash, pro-digital vested interests.

Cash is NOT going away - and NOR are WE.

Source: riksbank.se/en-gb/payments--cash/payment-preparedness/recommendations-to-the-general-public