Riksbank Digital Krona Letter: Five Years Plus Before Any Launch

On 15 October 2026 the Riksbank published a letter to the Riksdag’s Committee on Finance, dated 7 October 2026, explaining why the question of a digital krona, the instrument it used to call the e-krona, is back on the table. The letter estimates that implementing a digital krona would take the Riksbank and the market at least five years, on top of the time needed to change the law, and concludes that it is justified to start preparing the legislative framework now, even if Sweden ultimately decides not to launch one or to postpone a launch further.

Nothing in the letter binds a Swedish bank or payment service provider today. The Riksbank says plainly that it has not taken a position on whether a digital krona should be issued, and the Sveriges Riksbank Act (2022:1568) only lets it issue a digital means of payment with the Riksdag’s consent. The letter sets out the planning horizon: it lists the work that would fall on the market, from software development and connection to a new technical platform through to system integration running from accounting systems to customer interfaces, and it points the design toward the infrastructure the ECB is building for the digital euro.

Related reading: Digital Euro Rulebook: What the ECB Expert Call Means for PSPs

Digital krona timeline: what carries a date and what does not

The letter sits at the end of a chain of documents that started with the 2023 Payments Inquiry. Most of the dates below belong to the digital euro, which is the file the Riksbank is measuring itself against. The status column separates proposals and negotiating mandates from adopted law.

The five-year figure in the bottom row is the Riksbank’s estimate of implementation effort for itself and the market. It does not start on 15 October 2026, and the letter attaches it to no calendar year.

Chapter 4, Section 9 and the consent that still has to come

The legal hook is short. Chapter 4 of the Sveriges Riksbank Act covers cash and other means of payment, and Section 9 provides that the Riksbank may issue digital means of payment after the Riksdag’s consent (in Swedish, “efter riksdagens medgivande”). The Act entered into force on 1 January 2023, so the power already exists in statute. Using it requires a separate parliamentary decision that has not been taken.

Read against that provision, the letter’s stated purpose is informational: to tell the Riksdag about recent developments, the timeframe for introducing a digital krona, and the need for legislative amendments if the Riksdag later decides to introduce one. No consent is requested. The Riksbank adds that, if the Committee on Finance wishes, it may return with a more detailed proposal for terms of reference, preferably once the regulation establishing the digital euro has been finalised.

Appendix 2 to the letter contains a drafting detail worth keeping in a regulatory change log. It proposes that the entry into force of the eventual legislative amendments should be linked to the date of the Riksdag’s decision under Chapter 4, Section 9 granting the Riksbank authorisation to issue digital kronor. If future legislation links its commencement to the Riksdag’s consent decision, that link would need to be checked against the enacted commencement and transitional provisions. A bank’s implementation dates would also depend on the obligations imposed by the final legislation and subsequent technical rules. Chapter 4, Section 9 separately requires parliamentary consent before issuance.

The same appendix fences off two things. A digital krona would not affect the Riksbank’s exclusive right to issue banknotes and coins under Chapter 9, Article 14 of the Instrument of Government, nor its responsibility for the tasks the letter calls “ESCB-related” under Chapter 9, Section 13 of the Instrument of Government. The investigator’s remit, as the Riksbank sketches it, should therefore not include proposals to amend the Constitution.

Why the Riksbank moved the start of legislative work forward

Seven months separate two Riksbank positions on timing. In the Payments Report 2026, published on 12 March 2026, the Riksbank recommended an inquiry into the necessary legislative amendments and proposed setting it up once the digital euro regulation has been finalised and the ECB has decided to issue a digital euro. The October letter keeps the inquiry as the vehicle but says it is justified to begin preparing the legislative framework now. Only the more detailed terms of reference are tied, preferably, to the finalised digital euro regulation, and the letter does not mention the ECB issuance decision as a condition.

This reads as a change of sequencing, with the substance unchanged: the Riksbank still frames a launch as a political decision, and the long lead time is the argument for starting the legal groundwork first. The letter gives four reasons why the issue is back in focus.

Preparedness and offline payments

The letter places the payments market inside Sweden’s total defence. It quotes the Government’s Defence Decision for 2025-2030 on how heavily other emergency response sectors depend on the financial sector, notes that around 95 per cent of the financial sector consists of private operators, and points to hybrid threats such as cyber-attacks even in peacetime. Its claim for a digital krona is that it would give households and companies an additional payment method built on Swedish and European infrastructure, with better scope for offline payments when the electricity grid or telecommunications fail.

The digital euro

The Riksbank’s argument here is about where EU payment rules are heading. In its words, future payment solutions, infrastructure and legislation in the EU will be based on the existence of a digital euro, and the long-term lack of a comparable solution based on the Swedish currency could affect the competitiveness of the Swedish payment system. The letter also notes that both the Council and the Parliament have supported letting retailers outside the euro area accept the digital euro from tourists.

Stablecoins

This is the part most easily over-read. The letter says that if stablecoins pegged to foreign currencies became attractive as a means of payment, use of the krona could come under pressure inside Sweden, and then states the Riksbank’s assessment that such a scenario does not pose a significant risk, at least not in the near term, while adding that it cannot be ignored in the long run. Appendix 1 lists the US legislation on dollar-pegged stablecoins (the GENIUS Act), dated June-July 2025, the 25 September 2025 announcement by nine European banks, including SEB and Danske Bank, of a planned euro-pegged stablecoin venture (named Qivalis on 2 December 2025), and the 20 May 2026 entry of a further 25 banks including Handelsbanken, Nordea and Swedbank. The letter records those events and offers no view on the banks’ participation. For the EU reporting regime for e-money tokens, see our guide to stablecoin reporting under MiCAR and PSD3.

Competitiveness and instant payments

The fourth reason is the one with the most direct consequence for banks. The Riksbank writes that the Swedish market is beginning to lag some other European countries in instant account-to-account payments, citing Norway and Denmark, where almost all banks offer instant payments through mobile or online banking. That argument connects the letter to the Riksbank’s March 2027 checkpoint for instant payments.

The digital euro file the Riksbank is waiting on

The Commission proposed the digital euro regulation on 28 June 2023. The Council agreed its negotiating position on 19 December 2025 and the European Parliament adopted its own on 9 July 2026. The Riksbank letter anticipates that trilogue negotiations will conclude in 2026. On the ECB side, the Governing Council decided on 30 October 2025 to move to the next phase of the project, on the assumption that the co-legislators adopt the regulation in the course of 2026, with the Eurosystem ready for a potential first issuance during 2029. The ECB was explicit that its final decision on whether to issue will only be taken once the legislation has been adopted. On 14 July 2026 it announced 36 payment service providers selected for a pilot due to start in the second half of 2027 and run for 12 months, using a beta version without legal tender status.

For Swedish firms the provisions that matter most sit in the chapter of the Commission’s 2023 text on distribution outside the euro area:

• Article 18 lets payment service providers distribute the digital euro to people and firms residing or established in a Member State whose currency is not the euro only if the ECB and that Member State’s national central bank have signed an arrangement. Signing depends on the Member State notifying a request, undertaking that its central bank will follow ECB rules and supply information, and adopting the national legislation needed.
• Article 21 makes cross-currency payments between the digital euro and other currencies subject to prior agreements between the ECB and the central banks concerned, and requires the ECB to cooperate with non-euro central banks to enable interoperable payments.
• The proposal defines a “visitor” as a natural person without domicile or residence in the euro area who is travelling to and staying in a euro area Member State, including for tourism, business or education, and lists visitors among the persons PSPs may serve.
• The explanatory memorandum states that PSPs authorised outside the euro area may provide digital euro services through the freedom of establishment or the free provision of services under Directive (EU) 2015/2366, and the regulation was accompanied by a separate proposal, COM(2023) 368, on digital euro services provided by PSPs incorporated in Member States whose currency is not the euro.

All four points come from the Commission’s proposal. The Council and Parliament mandates may change these provisions. Any trilogue agreement would remain provisional until the regulation is formally adopted by the co-legislators and published in the Official Journal; the resulting obligations would then follow its entry-into-force and application provisions.

Two tracks are easy to merge in a board paper and should be kept apart. A digital krona running on ECB infrastructure would rest on a contract between the Riksbank and the ECB, which the letter lists among the Riksbank’s own preparatory tasks. Swedish residents holding digital euro would rest on the Article 18 route in the Commission’s text: a Swedish request and an arrangement between the ECB and the Riksbank. Neither the Payments Report’s e-krona recommendation nor the October letter mentions an Article 18 request.

Reusing ECB infrastructure: the TIPS and T2 precedent

The letter argues that if Sweden issued a digital krona, it would be advantageous to use the infrastructure the ECB is planning for the digital euro, as a reasonable route to resilient infrastructure that could also make cross-border payments across Europe faster and cheaper. The Payments Report put the same idea in cost terms: an e-krona could, by agreement with the ECB, use the euro digital platform, which “would enable a major cost advantage and compatibility between Swedish and European payments.” A footnote in the letter records the ECB’s plan for at least three independent operational regions and a dedicated offline payment function.

The Riksbank presents this as consistent with its existing choices. It has used the ECB’s platform for instant payments for several years, which is the TIPS platform behind RIX-INST, and it is preparing to move payments that currently pass through RIX-RTGS to T2. For the TIPS Cross Currency service made available to RIX-INST participants, see our explainer on Riksbank cross-currency instant payments over TIPS.

The precedent also shows what the Riksbank expects to do before any launch. As with TIPS and T2, it would need to investigate how Swedish legislation, security protection legislation for example, relates to using the same platform as the digital euro, negotiate a contract with the ECB, and draw up regulations, terms and conditions, and agreements for suppliers and users. For the market, the letter calls the introduction a major development project and names software development, connection to a new technical platform and system integration. Both sides would also have to run a major public information campaign.

A RIX-INST connection is easy to treat as a head start, and the letter gives limited support for that. It describes the market’s task as connecting to a new technical platform. It is reasonable to expect that a digital krona would come with its own onboarding, rulebook and testing cycle, even with the ECB operating both platforms.

What the proposed inquiry would have to settle for distributors

Appendix 2 is the closest thing to a scope document in the release. It suggests appointing a special investigator to identify and analyse the need for new legislation or amendments in these and other relevant areas:

For a bank or PSP, the second row decides the business model. Questions such as who onboards users, who performs customer due diligence and whether any firm would be required to distribute would logically sit under “distribution” and “division of responsibilities”. The letter answers none of them. It says only that the new Act should take into account the forthcoming EU regulation establishing the digital euro, “as well as Swedish circumstances and the Swedish legislative tradition.”

The Commission’s digital euro text shows what a copied model would look like, and the letter’s wording leaves room for Sweden to diverge from it. Under the Commission’s proposal, the Payment Services Directive applies to digital euro payment transactions, the Anti-Money Laundering Directive and the transfer of funds regulation apply subject to the offline rules in Article 37, and credit institutions that operate payment accounts would have to distribute basic digital euro payment services to natural persons residing in the euro area, at their clients’ request. Distribution by other PSPs would be at their own initiative. Whether a Swedish Act would contain an equivalent distribution duty for banks is an open question the inquiry would have to answer.

The estate and bankruptcy row looks remote from a payments desk. It matters to any firm that would hold digital kronor for customers, because estate and insolvency procedures would need a rule for those holdings. The letter names the statutes, the Bankruptcy Act and the 1936 gifts Act among them, and proposes no answers.

Privacy, offline payments and AML: where the letter draws the line

The letter states that it should not be possible to use a digital krona for surveillance and borrows the digital euro’s design to make the point. In the Riksbank’s description of the Commission’s proposal, the ECB will not be able to identify who is sending or receiving a payment that is not made offline, only the banks involved in a specific transaction can, and information on offline payments made in shops must be anonymous, as with cash. The Commission’s own text adds that the ECB and national central banks would use pseudonymisation or encryption so that personal data cannot be directly attributed to an identified or identifiable digital euro user. The letter concludes that a Swedish framework “could be designed in a similar way.”

The proposal’s mechanism is narrower than the word anonymous suggests. As the explanatory memorandum describes Article 37, for offline payments the ECB, the national central banks and PSPs would not gain access to personal transaction data, but PSPs would still hold funding and defunding data, including the user’s identity and the amounts moved, and would transmit it on request to financial intelligence units and other competent authorities where money laundering or terrorist financing is suspected. The Commission would be empowered to set holding and transaction limits by implementing act, and the memorandum describes the framework as excluding full anonymity. On the Commission’s design, a distributor’s AML work for offline use would concentrate on onboarding and on funding and defunding. For the device side of that design, see our note on the ECB’s offline digital euro standards.

The letter also separates conditional payments from programmable money. Under Article 24 of the Commission’s text, the ECB may adopt rules and provide settlement functionality, including reservation of funds, so PSPs can offer conditional payments, and Article 24(2) states that the digital euro shall not be programmable money. The Riksbank’s example is a payment released only once goods have been received, offered by banks, which it contrasts with money restricted in purpose or duration from issue, likened to a gift voucher. On that framing the conditional product layer belongs to the PSPs, which is a design choice a Swedish Act could copy or change.

Instant payments: the dated obligations running in parallel

Instant payments, unlike the digital krona, already carry dates. The Payments Report 2026 recommended that payment service providers offer more instant payment services, for example by banks that offer regular account-to-account payments through internet banking also offering instant ones. The Riksbank set a checkpoint: within one year, by March 2027, it expects the market to have started offering such services or to have communicated a plan to do so in the near future. If that does not happen, it considers that legislation should be introduced, similar to the EU’s instant payments regulation but adapted to Swedish conditions. It also noted that RIX-INST participants have had the conditions to develop such services since November 2024.

Separately, Regulation (EU) 2024/886, which amended the SEPA Regulation, already sets dates for PSPs located in a Member State whose currency is not the euro. These obligations have distinct scopes: Article 5a concerns instant euro credit transfers, Article 5b sets rules on charges and free verification services, and Article 5c requires verification of the payee for both ordinary and instant euro credit transfers:

The regulation covers euro. Recital 4 says Member States outside the euro area should be able to apply equivalent rules to domestic instant credit transfers in their own currency, which means a krona-denominated instant obligation would need Swedish legislation. That is the legislation the Riksbank has said it would support if the March 2027 checkpoint is missed. For the full euro rule set, including sanctions screening and verification of payee deadlines by entity type, see our SEPA Instant Payments Regulation guide.

These dates run on their own legal basis under Regulation (EU) 2024/886 and apply whatever Sweden later decides on a digital krona.

Signals that would move the digital krona from watch list to project

The documents name the next steps, and none of them has happened yet:

• The Committee on Finance’s handling of the letter, and whether the Riksdag considers that the legislative work should be initiated. The Riksbank says it stands ready to assist if it does.
• The appointment of a public inquiry, which the letter names as the way legislative preparation would begin.
• A more detailed Riksbank proposal for terms of reference, which it has offered to produce, preferably after the digital euro regulation is finalised.
• The final digital euro regulation, and in particular the final wording of the non-euro distribution and cross-currency provisions and of the companion regulation for PSPs incorporated outside the euro area.
• The ECB Governing Council’s decision on whether and when to issue the digital euro, which follows adoption of the legislation.

Until the inquiry exists, a bank has no requirements text to gap-analyse. The letter’s own lists, the build items in the main text and the legal areas in Appendix 2, are the most specific scoping material available, and they are enough to identify which internal owners would need to be in the room when terms of reference appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has the Riksdag given the Riksbank permission to issue a digital krona?

No consent decision has been taken. Chapter 4, Section 9 of the Sveriges Riksbank Act requires the Riksdag’s consent before the Riksbank issues a digital means of payment. The October letter is information to the Committee on Finance, and the Riksbank states that it has not taken a position on whether a digital krona should be issued.

Could Swedish customers hold digital euro without Sweden issuing a digital krona?

Under the Commission’s 2023 proposal, three categories are relevant. First, residents or firms established in Sweden could obtain access following the conditions in Articles 13(1)(d) and 18, including a Swedish request, the necessary national legislation and an ECB-Riksbank arrangement. Second, Article 13(1)(b) would allow people or firms who opened a digital euro account while resident or established in the euro area to retain access after moving away, subject to possible ECB time limits. Third, Article 13(1)(c) covers visitors travelling to and staying in the euro area. These are proposed provisions, not rights currently in force, and neither the October letter nor the Payments Report’s e-krona recommendation mentions a Swedish request.

Is the 2020-2023 e-krona pilot platform the starting point for a digital krona?

The Riksbank’s e-krona pages describe the pilot as a test of a possible technical platform, completed in 2023, after which the project shifted to following international work, especially the digital euro. The October letter’s preferred route is the infrastructure the ECB is planning for the digital euro, used by agreement with the ECB. It does not propose building on the pilot platform.

Would a digital krona come with a holding limit or pay interest?

The letter is silent on both. The questions would sit under the “availability, use and any restrictions” heading of the proposed Act on digital kronor. For comparison only, the Commission’s digital euro proposal gives the ECB instruments to limit the digital euro’s use as a store of value, including holding limits, and provides that it should not bear interest.

Does a Swedish payment institution have to offer euro instant payments if it only runs SEK accounts?

Under the SEPA Regulation as amended by Regulation (EU) 2024/886, the instant obligation in Article 5a(1) follows the offer of euro credit transfers (see also recital 7), and Article 5a(8) sets the dates. For sending from accounts denominated in the national currency, the derogation runs until 9 June 2028 and covers the times when the PSP neither sends nor receives non-instant euro credit transfers on those accounts (recital 10 ties this to limited euro liquidity outside business hours). For those same times, Article 5a(2) also lets the competent authority, after assessing the PSP’s access to euro liquidity, permit it to cap instant euro sending from those accounts at a per-transaction limit that the authority sets at no less than EUR 25,000, for one year at a time with possible one-year extensions. Whether a specific product falls in scope depends on what it offers today, which is a question for the firm’s own legal review.

Does a digital krona change the rules on banknotes and coins?

Appendix 2 states that a digital krona would not affect the Riksbank’s exclusive right to issue banknotes and coins under the Instrument of Government, and that the investigator’s remit should not include constitutional amendments. Separate Riksbank recommendations on cash in the Payments Report 2026 are a different track.

Related Articles

• ECB Digital Euro Pilot: BCL and Two Luxembourg PSPs Join: the ECB’s selection of 36 PSPs for the 2027 pilot, including Luxembourg-registered Worldline Financial Services (Europe) S.A. and Satispay Europe S.A.; the BCL participates separately as one of the national central banks involved.
• Riksbank Starts T2S Negotiations: SEK Securities Settlement on the Eurosystem Platform: the Riksbank’s other move onto Eurosystem infrastructure and what it means for settlement and CSDR reporting.
• Riksbank Payment Statistics Reporting: The 1 October 2026 Go-Live: what Swedish PSPs and payment system operators report to the Riksbank under RBFS 2025:1.
• Verification of Payee 2.0: The Next-Generation VoP Scheme Standard: the EPC scheme rulebook changes for the verification of payee service, which PSPs in non-euro Member States must offer by 9 July 2027.
• Digital Euro Rulebook: What the ECB Expert Call Means for PSPs: the ECB’s rulebook work for digital euro distribution and what its expert call signalled for PSPs.

Key Takeaways

• Doc. ref. 2026-01419 (dated 7 October, published 15 October 2026) is information to the Riksdag; it creates no obligation for banks or PSPs and asks for no consent under Chapter 4, Section 9.
• The Riksbank’s planning figure is at least five years of Riksbank and market implementation, counted from whenever work starts, plus legislative time.
• Log the Appendix 2 proposal to link the entry into force of future legislation to the Riksdag’s consent decision, and check it against the commencement and transitional provisions of any enacted Act before fixing implementation dates.
• Treat ECB-platform reuse and Swedish access to the digital euro as two separate decisions: a Riksbank-ECB contract for the first, an Article 18 request and arrangement under the Commission’s proposal for the second.
• Distribution, responsibility split, offline use, AML, sanctions, data protection, secrecy and estate or bankruptcy handling are the inquiry areas to assign internal owners for before terms of reference appear.
• Euro instant payment dates for PSPs located in Sweden that offer euro credit transfers come first: 9 January 2027 (receive; charges parity), 9 April 2027 (receive, for PIs and EMIs), 9 July 2027 (send; verification of payee), with sending from SEK accounts deferred to 9 June 2028 for the times when no non-instant euro transfers are sent or received on them.
• March 2027 is the Riksbank’s checkpoint for SEK instant account-to-account services, with Swedish legislation as its stated fallback.

Sources and References

• Sveriges Riksbank: Official communication: Information on developments that bring the issue of a digital krona back into focus (notice, 15 October 2026)
• Sveriges Riksbank: Letter to the Committee on Finance: information on developments that bring the issue of a digital krona to the fore (PDF), 7 October 2026, doc. ref. 2026-01419, including Appendix 1 and Appendix 2
• Sveriges Riksdag: Lag (2022:1568) om Sveriges riksbank (Sveriges Riksbank Act), Chapter 4, Section 9
• Sveriges Riksbank, Payments Report 2026: Recommendation for Riksdag and Government to set up an inquiry on an e-krona (12 March 2026)
• Sveriges Riksbank, Payments Report 2026: Payment service providers should offer more services for instant payments (12 March 2026)
• Sveriges Riksbank: E-krona (project status and Payments Inquiry summary)
• European Commission: Proposal for a Regulation on the establishment of the digital euro, COM(2023) 369 final (28 June 2023), including Articles 2, 5, 13, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24 and 37, and the explanatory memorandum
• European Commission: Proposal for a Regulation on the provision of digital euro services by payment services providers incorporated in Member States whose currency is not the euro, COM(2023) 368 final
• ECB: Eurosystem moving to next phase of digital euro project (press release, 30 October 2025)
• ECB: ECB selects 36 payment service providers to join digital euro pilot (press release, 14 July 2026)
• Council of the EU: Digital euro timeline (negotiating position, 19 December 2025)
• Regulation (EU) 2024/886 amending Regulations (EU) No 260/2012 and (EU) 2021/1230 and Directives 98/26/EC and (EU) 2015/2366 as regards instant credit transfers in euro: EUR-Lex (Articles 5a(1), 5a(2), 5a(8), 5b, 5c(9) and recitals 4, 7 and 10)
• Directive (EU) 2015/2366 on payment services in the internal market: EUR-Lex
• Sveriges Riksbank: The Instrument of Government (English translation), Chapter 9, Articles 13 and 14
• KBC Group newsroom: Qivalis joint venture of a European banking consortium to launch euro stablecoin in the second half of 2026 (press release, 2 December 2025)

Next checkpoints: the Committee on Finance and the digital euro trilogue

The letter is now with the Committee on Finance. If the Committee so wishes, the Riksbank may return with a more detailed proposal for terms of reference, preferably once the digital euro regulation has been finalised; the letter anticipates that the trilogue negotiations will conclude in 2026. The next dated obligations for Swedish PSPs in this area sit outside the digital krona file. Under Article 5a(8) of the amended SEPA Regulation, Swedish PSPs within scope, other than payment institutions and e-money institutions, must offer receipt of instant euro credit transfers by 9 January 2027; payment institutions and e-money institutions have until 9 April 2027 for receipt. The Riksbank’s separate March 2027 checkpoint for instant krona payment services follows close behind.

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