Financial markets

On Wednesday 25 March, a proposal was presented for loan guarantees to companies adversely affected by the COVID-19 virus outbreak. The aim is to make it easier for primarily small and medium-sized enterprises to access financing.

The remit of the inquiry has been to make a comprehensive analysis of the implications of the potential participation of Sweden in the European banking union.

Today the Government adopted guidelines for the Debt Office’s management of the central government debt. The foreign currency exposure of the central government debt is to be unchanged pending the Debt Office’s analysis of the strategic foreign currency exposure of the central government debt.

The Government decided today to task the Swedish National Debt Office with issuing green bonds by 2020. These are bonds that are used to fund budget expenditure on sustainable investments and projects. This bond issue will promote the Swedish market for green bonds and is part of the Government’s action to transition to sustainable development.

Minister for Financial Markets and Housing Per Bolund talks about how he wants to tackle his new area of responsibility, housing issues, and how he wants to work for stable financial markets that also help make Sweden more environmentally friendly.

As of 1 January 2020, new requirements will be introduced for fund managers to more clearly report how actively a fund’s assets are managed. The aim is to reduce the incidence of funds marketed as actively managed but which in fact follow a benchmark. This is the Government’s proposal in a bill presented to the Riksdag.

Today the Government will present a bill to the Riksdag to make it possible to exempt companies from the United Kingdom for a limited time from the requirement to hold a licence from Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) to provide investment services.

The Nordic and Baltic financial stability authorities have conducted a joint financial crisis management exercise. The exercise was held from 22 to 23 January 2019 and involved 31 authorities from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden as well as relevant European Union authorities. A staff member of the International Monetary Fund observed the simulation.