Nytt mandat för Riksbanken? - Rättsliga utmaningar och juridiskt övervägande med anledning av Riksbankens e-krona projekt
New mandate for the Swedish central bank? - Legal challenges and legal consideration due to the central banks e-krona project
Author
Summary, in English
The Swedish central bank started a project in January 2017 with the objective to explore whether digital cash would be relevant to the Swedish payment infrastructure. The central bank digital cash is referred to as ”e-kronor”.
It may seem peculiar why Sweden would be in a need for digital cash since the current adoption of electronic payment is very high. A simplified explanation of the reason for this is that cash could described as an asset issued by a central bank whilst money held within commercial banks’ accounts are assets issued by the commercial banks. The objective of the e-krona project is to explore if the Swedish economy should be provided an electric mean of payment issues by the central bank and if the introduction of e-krona would be a relevant approach to respond the development in the payment infrastructure and to address the issues of the payment infrastructure in the financial ecosystem.
The e-krona project contains a number of legal implications. In this thesis, the legal challenges associated with the potential issuing of e-krona in the Swedish payment infrastructure will be exposed. Within the scope of the theses it is defined whether the Swedish central bank is legally entitled to issue e-krona. The objective of the thesis is to provide the reader with a material that enables qualitative juridical analysis regarding the introduction of e-krona. The topic is interdisciplinary by nature but is dealt with in the preparation with legal method, which results in the essay having a high novelty value as no prior and deeper legal preparation has been conducted on this topic before.
In view of the above purpose, as well as to answer the questions, the essay explains the origin and characteristics of the various categories of money circulating in the Swedish economy. The current legal framework regarding cash's legal status is presented as well as the legal classification of the crypto currency. Crypto currencies’ foundation, the so-called blockchain technique, is also discussed. This because the technology is likely to play a very important role in the future payment infrastructure, which means that blockchain technology is relevant to taking into account when creating an e-krona through legislation. The thesis also depicts relevant legislation for the e-krona governing the commercial banking system and the Swedish central banks operations and organization. The presentation, of course, also presents the e-krona project itself and the project's possible solutions for the e-krona as well as legal implications of the proposed solutions.
The thesis end with an analysis that leads to the conclusion that several of the legal challenges associated with an e-krona cannot get legal solutions without setting political targets for the e-krona project. No profound social structural change should be able to be initiated and implemented by anything but a democratically elected assembly. Thus, before the decision to launch an e-krona, the central bank of Sweden should wait for directions from the legislator even if legal obstacles to an e-krona launch were deemed to be missing. This in order to avoid arbitrariness and to safeguard democratic rule of law.
It may seem peculiar why Sweden would be in a need for digital cash since the current adoption of electronic payment is very high. A simplified explanation of the reason for this is that cash could described as an asset issued by a central bank whilst money held within commercial banks’ accounts are assets issued by the commercial banks. The objective of the e-krona project is to explore if the Swedish economy should be provided an electric mean of payment issues by the central bank and if the introduction of e-krona would be a relevant approach to respond the development in the payment infrastructure and to address the issues of the payment infrastructure in the financial ecosystem.
The e-krona project contains a number of legal implications. In this thesis, the legal challenges associated with the potential issuing of e-krona in the Swedish payment infrastructure will be exposed. Within the scope of the theses it is defined whether the Swedish central bank is legally entitled to issue e-krona. The objective of the thesis is to provide the reader with a material that enables qualitative juridical analysis regarding the introduction of e-krona. The topic is interdisciplinary by nature but is dealt with in the preparation with legal method, which results in the essay having a high novelty value as no prior and deeper legal preparation has been conducted on this topic before.
In view of the above purpose, as well as to answer the questions, the essay explains the origin and characteristics of the various categories of money circulating in the Swedish economy. The current legal framework regarding cash's legal status is presented as well as the legal classification of the crypto currency. Crypto currencies’ foundation, the so-called blockchain technique, is also discussed. This because the technology is likely to play a very important role in the future payment infrastructure, which means that blockchain technology is relevant to taking into account when creating an e-krona through legislation. The thesis also depicts relevant legislation for the e-krona governing the commercial banking system and the Swedish central banks operations and organization. The presentation, of course, also presents the e-krona project itself and the project's possible solutions for the e-krona as well as legal implications of the proposed solutions.
The thesis end with an analysis that leads to the conclusion that several of the legal challenges associated with an e-krona cannot get legal solutions without setting political targets for the e-krona project. No profound social structural change should be able to be initiated and implemented by anything but a democratically elected assembly. Thus, before the decision to launch an e-krona, the central bank of Sweden should wait for directions from the legislator even if legal obstacles to an e-krona launch were deemed to be missing. This in order to avoid arbitrariness and to safeguard democratic rule of law.
Department/s
Publishing year
2017
Language
Swedish
Full text
Document type
Student publication for professional degree (Master's level)
Topic
- Law and Political Science
Keywords
- Bankrätt
- banking law
- E-krona
- finansrätt
- fiscal law
- blockchain
- blockkedja
- kryptovaluta
- cryptocurrency
- Riksbanken
- Riksbank
- fractional reserv banking
- Swedish central bank
- digital cash
- digitala kontanter
- elektroniska kontanter
- affärsbankspengar
- centralbankspengar
- central bank money
- skap pengar
Supervisor
- Christina Moëll (Professor)