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Comment by surfsvammel | Hacker News Reader

My company’s suggested implementation made it to the second round of proposals. Unfortunately we are not involved any more.

There are some serious challenges that needs to be ironed out. Two that comes to mind is how to solve offline payments, the other one is how to live up to the requirement from the government that the currency needs to be liquid also during a crisis (what if electricity or telecom doesn’t work?)

The Riskbank have had a hard time steering towards the inflation goals. Cutting the commercial banks from that chain, and giving interest, for example, directly on the currency, would make The Rikabanks job a lot easier.

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> My company’s suggested implementation made it to the second round of proposals.

If you don't mind me asking what company do you work for? I am actually studying computer science (security and privacy emphasis) at KTH in Sweden and I have been interested in CBDC for some time now. If your company offers master's theses I would love to connect on LinkedIn or via email.

> the other one is how to live up to the requirement from the government that the currency needs to be liquid also during a crisis (what if electricity or telecom doesn’t work?)

This is the first thing I thought of when reading the article. Since you seem to have some knowledge about the field, what are some proposed solutions to this problem?

The article mentioned something that I find particularly interesting:

> Sweden is the least cash-dependent country in the world, making it a litmus test for how central banks can react to people using less of the money they print.

To be honest I had my suspicions that this was the case. Anecdotally, I have lived in Sweden since August of 2018 and I cannot recall a single time where I have carried cash in my wallet or used cash for a transaction in Sweden. If I am not paying with a credit/debit card I usually just use Swish (similar to Venmo or Cash app for US readers, except it's operated by several Swedish banks and I believe the Swedish central bank).

> If you don't mind me asking what company do you work for? I am actually studying computer science (security and privacy emphasis) at KTH in Sweden and I have been interested in CBDC for some time now. If your company offers master's theses I would love to connect on LinkedIn or via email.

I might have the same employer, and the kind of company we and Accenture are don't primarily focus on this tech, but usually have a wide variety and ever changing list of options for a masters thesis.

How do those without bank accounts like tourists or the indigent operate in this "cashless" system?

Tourists tend to have cards and use them.

The poor people have bank accounts, because if you're poor and getting some gov't assistance, that gets transferred to a bank account (I mean, how else? No non-financial institution or gov't agency is going to employ tellers handing over cash directly, they all use banks for that, and checks aren't used); it's general EU policy that basic financial services (bank accounts, bank transfers, electronic bill paying, card payments) should be available to everyone including the very poorest. Even a homeless, unemployed drug addict would be expected to have access to these services.

I appreciate the insight. Regarding offline payments: Isn't the physical Krona exactly just that? Why is a new solution for this required?

I couldn't help but chuckle at the two typos (Freudian slips?) of Riksbank: "The Riskbank" and "The Rikabank" (bank of the rich).

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