But, as I said, this is a vision and nothing that lies just around the corner. 27 Among other things, this has led the European Central Bank (ECB) to develop a pan-European system for instant payments, Target Instant Payment Settlement (TIPS). 14 [21]  If history provides us with any guidance, I do not believe it is appropriate to completely cede the design of the monetary system to the private sector. Furthermore, a design of “fiat money” and an inflation target require some form of legislation. To sum up Let me round off with a short summary. I have gone through three aspects of developments in Sweden since the financial crisis: That the Riksbank is probably the only central bank that, at least for the time being, has needed to abandon the strategy of “leaning against the wind” due to weakening confidence in the inflation target; that the policy we have had to conduct to bring inflation back to target has been lively debated, despite its aim merely being to fulfil the Riksbank’s de facto remit; and that cash use is declining more rapidly in Sweden and today is lower than in any other country. As regards the first aspect, I noted that, although I myself think that a policy of “leaning against the wind” can very well be justified under normal circumstances, it is also a policy that in practice is difficult to maintain when confidence in the inflation target is under threat.
3 It may be worth noting that Sweden, together with countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway, belongs to a group of small open economies with floating exchange rates and inflation targets that have relatively similar challenges and problems: Via free capital movement, we have imported low real interest rates, there is downward pressure on inflation via, among other things, globalisation, private debt is high and there are problems on the housing market. 2 [21]  When you have to choose between “leaning against the wind” and the inflation target One of the conclusions from the global financial crisis is that financial factors and conditions must be given higher priority in economic analysis and be considered to a greater extent when designing economic policy. Above all, the crisis was a signal that greater effort must be made to avoid financial imbalances causing problems on the macro level. The most concrete expression from this was the emergence of macroprudential policy, which, in contrast to traditional supervision of individual banks and financial institutions, focuses on the entire financial system and the economy as a whole. 4 Some of the discussion has been about the extent to which monetary policy should be used to counteract the build-up of financial imbalances, for example a substantial and sustained credit expansion.