In shops, cash is now used for barely 20% of transactions, half the number five years ago, and way below the global average of 75%.ДЄnd astonishingly, about 900 of SwedenвЂ™s 1,600 bank branches no longer keep cash on hand or take cash deposits вЂ“ and many, especially in rural areas, no longer have ATMs. Swedish buses have not taken cash for years, it is impossible to buy a ticket on the Stockholm metro with cash, retailers are legally entitled to refuse coins and notes, and street vendors вЂ“ and even churches вЂ“ increasingly prefer card or phone payments.ДЄccording to central bank the Riksbank, cash transactions made up barely 2% of the value of all payments made in Sweden last year вЂ“ a figure some see dropping to 0.5% by 2020. Even for a candy bar or a paper, you use a card or phone.вЂќ Shops donвЂ™t want it lots of banks donвЂ™t even have it. Risks are simultaneously mitigated as the settlement of payments is carried out in central bank money.вЂњI donвЂ™t use cash any more, for anything,вЂќ said Louise Henriksson, 26, a teaching assistant.

This will promote efficiency as it will utilise the economies of scale inherent in a larger system while at the same time offering a competitively neutral settlement platform. The Riksbank has made the assessment that the best solution is to use the ECB and Eurosystem platform (TIPS) to settle instant payments in SEK. This means that it will become increasingly important to ensure that the settlement infrastructure for instant payments is efficient and can manage financial and technology-related risks. Instant payments are set to become increasingly common on the Swedish market and not just between private individuals or from consumer to company but also between companies and authorities. Looking forward, it is highly likely that instant payments will also be able to be initiated in other ways than with the Swish app, for example via online or mobile banking. The company that runs Swish (Getswish AB) has launched new services that have expanded the area of use for the payment service from person-to-person payments to eCommerce and payments in shops. But more and more companies and associations are starting to accept Swish payments. Until now, the growth has primarily been in person-to-person payments.

The number of Swish payments will probably continue to grow. In the long term, a possible alternative to BiR is to settle Swish payments in central bank money on the TIPS platform. In partnership with the banks, the Riksbank has developed this solution and by doing so laid the foundation for a settlement solution that minimises credit risk between participants in BiR. We can therefore say that settlement in BiR takes place in private bank money backed by central bank money.

Banks also deposit money in accounts at the Riksbank which works as a kind of guarantee for the payments made via BiR. BiR is a private service and settlement is carried out in private bank money via the banksвЂ™ BiR accounts. Swish payments can currently be made immediately 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, thanks to a settlement platform (Betalningar i realtid, BiR) that is jointly owned by banks. In 2018, Swish was responsible for six per cent of all electronic payments in Sweden. Since 2012, the number of payments made via the app has increased sharply. It enables people to make instant, real-time payments from their payment account to other payment accounts. The Swish payment app was launched at the end of 2012.

Swish in sweden