The past decade has offered up some fintech innovations that are gradually reshaping the financial sector. Phasing out of paper currencies together with the populatization of the private digital currencies has propelled central banks to consider issuance of their digital currencies – so called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). In particular, the Central Bank of Sweden has started its e-krona project in 2017. Despite the rising interest in the study of CBDC among the academic, as well as tech and policy practitioners’ communities all over the world, the research of the CBDC remains fragmented and limited. Therefore, this thesis aims to study the impact of CBDC on the conduct of monetary policy and for the preservation of financial and monetary stability that is an important, but underresearched topic. As such, the purpose of this research is to explore how the Central Bank of Sweden plans to use CBDC for addressing the central banks’ main objectives of monetary and financial stability. To reach this purpose, an exploratory qualitative case study has been conducted. The results are based on six semi-structured interviews conducted with the practitioners from the Central Bank of Sweden, Finansinspektionen, Swedish Bankers’ Association, and the Swedish House of Finance. The results of this study show that the Central Bank of Sweden has started studying the possibilities and implications of CBDC in the spring of 2017. The analysis focusses on the need of CBDC for Sweden, as well as the possibilities it opens up and implications it entails for the financial system. At the moment of the conduction of this study, the Central Bank of Sweden has been working on solving two next challenges – examining legal issues and existing technology. As such, a pilot project to test the e-krona concept for the general public and diverse security challenges has been planned for 2020-2021. Next, this study has also investigated the possible impact of the introduction of CBDC on the conduction of monetary policy and preservation of monetary and financial stability. First, this study has shown that the impact of the introduction of CBDC on quantitative easing would depend on the design of the CBDC. As such, if CBDC would be interest-bearing, it would have no impact on quantitative easing. If CBDC would, however, have no interest rate, the effectiveness of quantitative easing would be put in jeopardy. As such, a zero interest rate on CBDC would be a lower bound for policy rate and would make setting a negative policy rate impossible. Some economists argue that introducing CBDC would be a replacement for quantitative easing. The introduction of interest-bearing CBDC, however, would ease the setting of a negative policy rate and might enhance the operation of monetary policy. However, this research has shown that introduction of CBDC with a negative interest rate is unlikely. Second, this study has concluded that the necessity and the effectiveness of the helicopter money concept are widely questioned by scholars and practitioners. It is agreed that introducing CBDC would help to distribute the helicopter money, but the concept itself is often inapplicable. Thus, this research has concluded that helicopter money remains just an idea that is vastly supported by scholars and is a no-go policy for practitioners. Third, the study has also shown that CBDC’s impact on the transmission mechanism is still not clear. As such, scholars argue that CBDC would have a big impact on interest rate channel, as it will increase a pass-through to the to lending rates, as well as on the assets’ channel, as CBDC might become an alternative to bank deposits if it offers a higher interest rate. Practitioners agree that the introduction of interest-bearing CBDC would strengthen the transmission mechanism of the interest rate channel and would lead to the direct and almost instant correlation between the policy rate and the CBDC account interest rate. Some practitioners, however, believe that under the condition of the positive policy rate the transmission mechanisms would not be affected other than marginally. Lastly, an interest-bearing CBDC is considered to be dangerous for financial stability in the scholarly research. It is expected to compete with bank deposits and lead to bank runs, which would result in the drain of the funding from the banking system. Some practitioners agree with these conclusions, however, the majority disagrees and perceives CBDC to be an asset to diversify the savings portfolio, which would potentially bring more deposits to commercial banks and extend the banking system. It is agreed that CBDC would entail risks for financial stability if people lose trust in the whole banking sector and move all of their assets to the Central Bank accounts. However, if the Central Bank puts these assets back into the financial system, CBDC would not entail any risks. / Under det senaste decenniet har nya högteknologiska innovationer skapats som gradvist har förändrat den finansiella sektorn i grunden. Utfasning av pappersvalutor i kombination med populariseringen av privata digitala valutor har drivit och inspirerat centralbanker att skapa egna digitala valutor, så kallade CBDC (central bank digital currency). 2017 startade den svenska centralbanken, Sveriges riksbank, sitt e-krona projekt. Trots ökat intresset för studier av digital centralbanksvaluta, både bland akademiker men även inom experter och poltitiker över hela världen, saknas mycket forskning. Denna uppsats kommer att studera effekterna av digital centralbanksvaluta på penningpolitiken i relation till det finansiella och monetära systemets stabilitet. Syftet är att undersöka hur Sveriges riksbank planerar att använda en digital centralbanksvaluta för att vidare kunna uppfylla sitt primära syfte, som är att stabilisera ekonomin. För att uppnå detta, har en kvalitativ studie genomförts. Resultaten är baserade på sex stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer med anställda i olika beslutsfattande positioner inom Riksbanken, Finansinspektionen, Svenska Bankföreningen och Finanshuset. Resultaten av denna studie visar att Riksbanken har börjat undersöka möjligheterna och långvariga implikationerna av en digital centralbanksvaluta. För tillfället arbetar man med två utmaningar: att undersöka det juridiska ramverket samt tillgänglig teknologi. Pilottesterna av e-krona har påbörjats 2020, ytterligare tester har planerats för 2020 - 2021. Ytterligare har denna studie undersökt införandet av digital centralbanksvaluta möjliga effekter på penningpolitiken och långsiktig finansiell stabilitet. Inverkan av en digital centralbanksvaluta på den kvantitativa lättnaden skulle variera beroende på utformningen av den digitala valutan. Om den digitala valutan skulle vara räntebärande så skulle den inte ha någon effekt på den kvantitativa lättnaden, däremot om den var det skulle detta kunna påverka Riksbankens möjligeter att köpa statsobligationer. Det finns också diskussion hurvida man kan använda en digital centralbanksvaluta för att underlätta genomförandet av negativ styrränta. Dessutom visar denna studie också att nödvändighet och positiva effekter av så kallade helikopterpengar är starkt ifrågasatt, även om en digital centralbanksvaluta skulle kunna användas för att distribuera sådana monetära medel. Denna studie visar även att det är oklart om digital centralbanksvaluta skulle ha en effekt på den penningspolitiska transmissionsmekanismen. Många är dock övertygade att det skulle ha effekt på räntekanalen då det skulle öka genomströmningen mellan styrräntan och räntan på CBDC-kontot. Slutligen skulle en räntebärande digital centralbanksvaluta kunna vara farlig för finansiell stabilitet, då det kan stimulera snabba variationer i värde och sätta igång stora uttag från bankkonton. Dock, är detta farlig bara om människor tappar förtroende för hela banksektorn. Om inte är fallet, medför digital centralbanksvaluta inga risker och skulle kunna istället ses som en finansiell tillgång och öka insättningar på privata banker.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kth-285892 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Gnatenko, Iryna |
| Publisher | KTH, Industriell ekonomi och organisation (Inst.) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | TRITA-ITM-EX ; 2020:493 |
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