SPEECH DATE:  12/06/2019  SPEAKER:  Deputy Governor Martin Flodén  VENUE:  The Riksbank  TION:  SVERIGES RIKSBANK SE-103 37 Stockholm (Brunkebergstorg 11) Tel +46 8 787 00 00 Fax +46 8 21 05 31 registratorn@riksbank.se www.riksbank.se  Should the Riksbank’s payment system be open 24/365? * The central bank's role in the Swedish payment infrastructure has increasingly come into focus at the Riksbank.1 I am aware that this is an area that may not perhaps interest the general public as much as negative interest rates, housing prices, cash-free shops, the krona exchange rate and other things normally associated with the Riksbank. Most people are not – to be honest – very interested in how the “plumbing” works that enables millions of payments to be made every day, to a total value of hundreds of billions of krona. This is not really surprising. Payments are not an objective in themselves, but a means of making our day-to-day life work; getting our wages, paying our bills, buying food, giving the children pocket money, saving for our retirement and so on. But, like other central banks, the Riksbank has been given the task of promoting a safe and efficient payment system. We at the Riksbank therefore need to understand how the payment system is put together and to consider what measures and investments are needed to ensure it remains safe and efficient. The Swedish payment market has changed rapidly over the past decade.
10 As far as monetary policy is concerned, it is only the participant’s net position with regard to the Riksbank that  is important. If a participant in RIX borrows, say, SEK 10 billion in RIXRTGS and invests the same amount in its account in RIXINST the net position with regard to the Riksbank and thus the participant’s interest expenditure, will be zero. 7 [8]  Using the same technical platforms as most of the rest of Europe will, I believe, make it easier for Swedish payment service providers to establish themselves in Europe. And in the same way it will become simpler for foreign companies to compete in Sweden. It is also probable that it will become easier to make instant cross-currency payments in the future if the central banks use the same technical platform to settle payments. What happens next? During the spring, my colleagues on the Executive Board and I have discussed the Riksbank's future role in the payment infrastructure. My baseline in these discussions was that Sweden – like most other countries – has long had a model where the banks have settled payments in risk-free accounts in the central bank. This has been important in preserving the stability and credibility of the payment system. Now that the payment market is moving towards larger, more numerous and more important payments outside of RIX normal opening hours, the Riksbank needs to modernise the services it offers so that central bank money remains the norm when financial institutions settle payments.