Working Paper Series,
Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)

Abstract: Cash is being used less and less for making payments in many countries, including Canada and Sweden, which might suggest that cash will eventually disappear. However, cash in circulation in most countries, including Canada, has been stable for decades, and even rising in recent years. In contrast, aggregate cash demand in Sweden has been falling steadily. This paper explains these differences between Canada and Sweden by focusing separately on the transactions demand for cash and on the store-of-value demand. We find a long-term downward trend in small-denomination bank notes relative to gross domestic product in both Canada and Sweden. This reflects similar experiences in decreasing cash use for transactions over time due to the adoption of payment innovations. This means that payment innovations and diffusion are not sufficient to explain why aggregate cash demand has been declining rapidly in Sweden but not in Canada. Instead, the difference in the trends of cash demand between these two countries is due more to the behaviour of larger-denomination, store-of-value bank notes. Finally, we identify influences and frictions that help explain the persistent decline in the demand for larger bank notes in Sweden relative to Canada.

Keywords: Bank notes; Digital currencies and fi ntech; Financial services; Payment clearing and settlement systems.

JEL-codes: E40; E41; E42; E50

54 pages, August 1, 2019

Full text files

no.-376-a-tale-of-tw...anada-and-sweden.pdf  Full text

Download statistics

• Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden)
• Ordering Working Papers
• Home page for this series

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Lena Löfgren ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

This page generated on 2024-02-05 17:13:28.