The war
on cash in Sweden may be stalling. The anti-cash movement
has been vigorously promoted by major Swedish commercial banks
as well as the Riksbank, the Swedish central bank. In fact, for
three of the four major Swedish banks combined, 530 of their 780
office no longer accept or pay out cash. In the case of the Nordea
Bank, 200 of its 300 branches are now cashless, and three-quarters
of SwedbankÂ’s branches no longer handle cash. As Peter Borsos,
a spokesman for Swedbank, freely admits, his bank is working “actively
to reduce the [amount] of cash in society.” The reasons for
this push toward a cashless society, of course, have nothing to
do with pumping up earnings from bank card fees or, more important,
freeing fractional-reserve banks from the constraints of bank
runs. No, according to Borsos, the reasons are the environment,
cost, and security: ”We ourselves emit 700 tons of carbon
dioxide by cash transport. It costs society 11 billion per year.
And cash helps robberies everywhere.” Hans Jacobson, head
of Nordea Bank, argues similarly: ”Our mission is to make
people understand the point of cards, cards are more secure than
cash.”

Fortunately,
it seems that the Swedish people are not falling for the anti-cash
propaganda spewed by private bankers and Riksbank officials and
are resisting the trend toward a cashless economy. It is reported
that last year the value of cash transactions in Sweden were 99
billion krona which represented only a marginal decrease from
ten years ago. And small shops continue to do one-third to one-half
of their business in cash. Furthermore a study of bank customers
satisfaction released by the Swedish Quality Index in October
2012, indicated that the satisfaction index was pulled down among
customers of Swedbank, Nordea and SEB by their policy of eliminating
cash transactions at their bank branches. Even more heartening
is the fact that Handelsbanken, the largest bank in Sweden, is
committed to serving consumers who demand cash. As Kai Jokitulppo,
head of private services at Handelsbanken, puts it: