This has been the focus of considerable discussion, particularly in Finland, as there they have chosen to continue their practice of rounding-off and to round off cash payments to the nearest five cents, something we would probably also do in Sweden if we adopt the euro. Eurostat's euro indicator for January 2002 shows that the price level in the euro countries rose by 0.5 per cent between December 2001 and January 2002. However, this is not considered to be caused primarily by the cash changeover - the effect of this is estimated to be somewhere in the interval of  2  BIS Review 23/2002  0.0-0.16 per cent. The Bank of Finland has not yet made a complete analysis of how large an effect the cash changeover has had on prices, but the figures for the month of January give no indication of inflationary pressure from the price rounding-off. However, there have been reports from the Netherlands of some effects on inflation. In a number of other countries (e.g. Greece, France and Ireland) the authorities have been keeping a very close watch on price increases and are working to counteract them. Naturally, there are a large number of other experiences from the introduction of the euro that could be mentioned in this context, and the Riksbank is working on a compilation of the information we have received from other central banks in the euro area. This compilation will be presented in the next progress report from the SIFS group (no.
Eva Srejber: Experiences from the cash changeover in the euro area Speech by Ms Eva Srejber, Second Deputy Governor of Sveriges Riksbank, at a meeting of the Swedish Federation of Trade, Stockholm, 9 April 2002. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking you for the invitation to come to the Swedish Federation of Trade's meeting to speak about the cash changeover that has taken place in the twelve countries now participating fully in the third stage of EMU. The changeover from national banknotes and coins to euro has gone much more quickly and been more problem-free than expected and now the euro is an established currency in the countries concerned. The cash changeover was a major challenge for these countries, as the volumes were so extensive and the time period for the changeover was relatively short. Almost 15 billion euro banknotes and 50 billion euro coins were to be distributed, and at the same time all of the national banknotes and coins were to be withdrawn to the central banks. The logistics and security for the changeover therefore had to be specially designed and extra capacity was required. However, the most important factor in making the changeover a success was the enthusiasm of the general public and the naturalness demonstrated by banks, the retail trade and other institutions handling cash when carrying out their work.