Sweden's central bank to include banks in next stage of e-krona project

Sweden’s central bank has announced plans to include other banks in the coming year to test how the e-krona could handle commercial and retail payments in the real world.

Up to now, its proposed digital currency pilot has only been simulated within the Riksbank but will be broadened to include participants like commercial banks in the next phase of the project, Reuters cited central bank’s representatives. Still, the bank said it could not yet confirm which banks or payment providers would assist in its next phase of testing.

The pilot has been going for a year, with the aim of testing out possible designs for a publicly used e-krona in Sweden.

Central banks around the world are looking at launching central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in response to a decline in the use of the cash they print and as a way of speeding up domestic and international payments. Until now, most central banks have only got as far as researching CBDCs. Only the Bahamas has launched one, and Sweden and China are the only other nations to have begun testing.

The Riksbank said its pilot e-krona was based on a blockchain technology called Distributed Ledger Technology, but that no final decision had been made as to the final form a Swedish CBDC would take. To learn more about CBDCs, download our ebook Central Bank Digital Currencies for Beginners – A Quick Guide into CBDCs.