Sweden's Riksbank wants parliament to prepare legislation for a digital krona, driven by geopolitical tension, the digital euro and the growth of stablecoins. Implementation would take at least five years, so preparations should start now.
Photo: A digital krona still exists only as an idea — the Riksbank is now asking parliament to put the legislation in place. (AI-generated illustration / Kaupr)
Sweden’s Riksbank published a letter on 15 October, dated 7 October, to the Riksdag’s Committee on Finance, setting out developments since the 2023 Payments Inquiry concluded that there was not, at the time, a sufficiently strong societal need to introduce a digital krona, also known as an e-krona. The inquiry noted at the same time that the payments market is changing rapidly, and that economic, political and technological shifts could make a new assessment necessary. Under Chapter 4, Section 9 of the Sveriges Riksbank Act (2022:1568), the Riksbank may issue a digital means of payment with the Riksdag’s consent. The Riksbank itself has not taken a position on whether a digital krona should be issued — the letter is meant to inform the Riksdag of recent developments, the timeframe for a possible introduction, and the need for legislative amendments.
The Riksbank points to a significantly deteriorating security situation in recent years, and to the payments market’s key role in Sweden’s preparedness and sovereignty. The government’s Defence Decision 2025–2030 states that all other emergency response sectors are heavily dependent on the financial sector and private operators such as banks, insurance companies and businesses that handle cash and payment infrastructure. Around 95 per cent of the financial sector consists of private operators. By disrupting or collapsing the financial system, an adversary could engage in blackmail, spread threats and mislead the public, according to the Defence Decision. Even in peacetime, the payments system is a target for so-called hybrid threats, such as cyberattacks.
A digital krona could, according to the Riksbank, strengthen the resilience of the Swedish payments market by giving households and businesses a means of payment based on Swedish and European infrastructure, with better options for offline payments if the power grid or telecommunications networks were to fail.
Work on a digital euro has progressed significantly. The European Commission presented a proposal for a regulation on 28 June 2023, and both the Council and the European Parliament have since adopted their respective negotiating positions. Trilogue negotiations are expected to conclude this year, and the European Central Bank (ECB) has announced a pilot in the second half of 2027, followed by a public launch in 2029. The digital euro is meant to enable payments across the entire euro area, covering around 350 million people, and both the Council and the Parliament support allowing retailers outside the euro area to accept the digital euro from tourists.
The solution will primarily be used digitally, for example via mobile phones, but will also support offline payments during power cuts or telecommunications outages, and the infrastructure is being built with several operational centres spread across Europe to withstand disruptions. The ECB has repeatedly highlighted that the digital euro will enable conditional payments, where a bank can offer to finalise a payment only once certain conditions are met — for example, once goods have been received. That is distinct from so-called programmable money, which is restricted in purpose or duration from the moment it is issued, similar to a gift voucher. The ECB has made clear that the digital euro will not be programmable.
The Commission’s proposal also stipulates that it will not be possible to control how the digital euro is used. For payments that are not made offline, the ECB will not be able to identify who is sending or receiving payments — only the banks involved in a given transaction will have that information, just as today. For offline payments made in shops, the information must be anonymous, as is currently the case with cash. The Riksbank writes that a Swedish regulatory framework for a digital krona could be designed along similar lines.
Stablecoins are digital assets whose value is pegged 1:1 to one or more underlying assets, built on the same decentralised technology as more volatile crypto-assets such as bitcoin, but intended to be more stable. Most stablecoins issued today are pegged to the US dollar. Use and volume have grown rapidly, although the market remains small relative to the global financial system. A concrete example of this shift already exists in Sweden: the German company AllUnity, which issues the euro and Swiss franc stablecoins EURAU and CHFAU, announced in May a Swedish krona stablecoin called SEKAU, regulated as an e-money token under MiCA with a planned launch in June 2026. Such a privately issued token is a claim on the issuer’s own reserves, not on the Riksbank, and is therefore distinct from a digital krona issued by the central bank itself.
So far, stablecoins have mainly been used for trading crypto-assets, but they could also become more widely used as a means of payment. If stablecoins pegged to foreign currencies become attractive for payments, use of the Swedish krona could come under pressure even within Sweden’s own borders. The Riksbank’s assessment is that this does not pose a significant risk, at least not in the near term, though it writes that the risk cannot be ignored over the longer term.
Sweden has been at the forefront of the payments market for decades, with innovations such as e-identification and the mobile payment solution Swish, but the Riksbank points to signs that the Swedish market is now beginning to lag behind other European countries, including on broader solutions for instant account-to-account payments. In Norway and Denmark, for example, almost all banks offer customers instant payments via mobile or online banking, and in the euro area banks are now required to offer instant account-to-account payments if they already offer regular credit transfers. A digital krona would, according to the Riksbank, give the public more options for instant payments and could, under certain conditions, open up new possibilities for cross-border payments. A well-functioning payments system makes it more attractive to keep using Swedish kronor, which the Riksbank says could strengthen the krona’s position and reduce the risk of it losing ground to other digital central bank currencies and new digital assets such as stablecoins.
Norges Bank reached a different conclusion in December 2025: it found no grounds at the time to introduce central bank digital currency (CBDC), whether aimed at the public or as settlement money for banks. The conclusion came after phase five of Norges Bank’s CBDC process, and governor Ida Wolden Bache has said the need for such money could change in the future, and that the bank will be ready to introduce a CBDC if needed for an efficient and secure payments system. Norges Bank is continuing its technical work on tokenisation and CBDC in parallel, including with DNB.
Norges Bank has since stressed that its work on the future of money continues, beyond CBDC as well — the bank is tracking both stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits over a longer horizon. On 7 September this year, the bank went a step further and said it is working with twelve named players in the financial industry to map tokenisation: DNB Carnegie, DNB, Kommunalbanken, Citi, LOKALBANK, SpareBank 1, Bits, KLP, Eika, Euronext, Nordea and SEB. Beyond that post, nothing has been published about the work, but the bank says the trials will provide practical experience, while it also gathers information on similar efforts in other countries.
While the Riksbank is now asking for legislative preparations for a digital krona to begin immediately, Norges Bank is for now sticking to its position that there are no grounds to introduce central bank digital currency — even as its technical mapping of tokenisation continues in parallel.
The Payments Inquiry reviewed which legislative amendments could become relevant but did not put forward specific legislative proposals. According to the inquiry, a wide range of laws would need to be amended if a digital krona were to be introduced, and a dedicated act on the digital krona would likely be required. Beyond the legislative work, extensive preparations are also needed from both the Riksbank and the market. As it did before joining the ECB’s TIPS and T2 payment systems, the Riksbank would need to examine how Swedish legislation, including security protection law, relates to using the same platform as the digital euro, and contracts would need to be negotiated with the ECB. For the market, introducing a digital krona would be a major development project involving software development, connecting to a new technical platform and system integration — from accounting systems to customer interfaces. Both the Riksbank and the market would also need a major public information campaign.
The Riksbank estimates that the implementation work alone would take at least five years, on top of the time needed to pass the required legislative amendments. Given such a long lead time, the Riksbank believes there are grounds to begin preparing the legislative framework now, even if Sweden ultimately decides not to launch a digital krona, or to delay a launch further. Legislative preparations should, in the Riksbank’s view, begin with the appointment of a special investigator, and the bank says it stands ready to assist if the Riksdag wants to get the work under way.
Sources: Sveriges Riksbank, Kaupr
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