So far, the bond purchases have generated a profit but our interest rate forecasts indicate future losses and thereby lower or zero dividend payments to the  18 Sveriges Riksbank (2010). 19 See, for instance, my own reasoning in the minutes of the monetary policy meeting in February 2015 (Sveriges  Riksbank, 2015b) and Annika Alexius in Svenska Dagbladet (2016). 10 [12]  government. Despite the increased risks, my assessment is that the Riksbank’s financial position remains healthy. The Riksbank’s equity has increased from just over SEK 70 billion before the financial crisis to its current level of just over SEK 120 billion. Even though it is likely that equity will shrink substantially in the coming years, it is my opinion that profit fluctuations are unlikely to be large enough to cause equity to fall to worryingly low levels. Finally, I would like once again to remind you that the aim of the Riksbank’s operations is not to make a profit and deliver dividends to the government. Our task is to maintain price stability, and we do that by safeguarding the credibility of the inflation target. In this way, we promote efficient price-setting and wage formation in the economy, which forms the basis of sustainable economic development with high employment. References af Jochnick, Kerstin (2015), “Does the Riksbank have to make a profit? Challenges for the funding of the Riksbank", speech, 23 January 2015, Sveriges Riksbank.
Sources: TNS Sifo Prospera and Statistics Sweden  For the Riksbank, this development led us during the spring of 2015 to reduce the Swedish policy rate, the repo rate, to negative levels and to start purchasing government bonds. One purpose of the bond purchases was to push down interest rates on longer maturities. 4 My assessment is that this monetary policy has, on the whole, been successful. The bond purchases seem to have pushed down interest rates more or less in the way we expected. 5 And the monetary policy also seems to have had the intended effect on inflation and inflation expectations. The downward trend has been reversed and both are now on significantly higher levels than at the end of 2014 (see Chart 2). At the same time, the Swedish economy has developed positively, with high growth and falling unemployment. … but the effects on the Riksbank’s finances must nevertheless be taken into account The purpose of the Riksbank’s bond purchases is thus to support the inflation target’s role as nominal anchor for price-setting and wage formation, and thereby to contribute to a positive development in the Swedish economy. How the Riksbank’s financial position is affected is therefore of subordinate, but not negligible, importance. I see at least two reasons to monitor how the Riksbank’s finances develop. First, the Riksbank’s finances are part of public finances. The size of the Riksbank’s profits and losses affect the dividends we can deliver to the government.