Swedes need to keep a week’s cash under the bed

Risk list

MSB lists natural disasters, such as forest fires and storms, terror attacks, and, for the first time since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the risk of military conflict.

It’s also notable that, for the time being, financial organisations feel they need to prioritise quick recovery over forensics.

“Systems must run at all costs, which leads to a lack of fact gathering, and it would be useful if it was also possible to gather more information to use to build knowledge and improve systems,” said MSB.

The financial area in Sweden is mostly concentrated to Stockholm and depends on certain central functions. The system has some flaws, which MSB admitted in a report issued earlier this year, and these can lead to problems that in their turn could lead to a serious lack of citizens’ trust in society’s ability to uphold important functions.

In 2008, there was a malfunction in the Swedish central bank’s system. It was unable to contact the outside world using the regular IT solutions it had. Other things have happened too, and military exercises in Sweden have since focused extensively on the problem.

There have also been serious breaks close to Sweden – some internet banks in Estonia were down in 2007 – and Hansapank (owned by the Swedish bank Swedbank) and SEB Uhispank (owned by the Swedish bank SEB) have been hit by denial of service attacks.

Digital transactions are booming globally, with Sweden at the forefront. According to the World payments report 2018, released in October last year by Capgemini and BNP Paribas, Swedes make on average 461.5 transactions annually per person (2016), compared with the US, where there was slower increase of 5.2%, and an average of 459.6 transactions per capita.

Many Swedes live on the money they get on a monthly basis, and they often use all of it at once without saving. This means it’s essential for the digital payment systems and cash distributors to be kept running at all times and operating without fault.

Planned conference

The County Board in Värmland, Sweden – neighbouring the Norwegian border – is holding a conference in June about financial services and threats.

The county aims to build awareness, as many organisations and public sector members need to prepare for emergencies and know what to do in the case of an emergency. At the conference, the attendees will be shown how payment systems work on a national, regional and local level.

“We work with local municipalities’ emergency coordinators,” said Anneli Alsterlind, risk and security officer at Värmland County Board.

“It is difficult to say to what extent members of the public understand the risks, and if they store cash at home, but it’s probably not enough. Citizens that are not yet a part of the digital society and who use cash to make payments on a daily basis are better prepared.”

Public service radio broadcast corporation Sveriges Radio recently broadcast a warning about what happens if the card payment system crashes, and a role play exercise was held in southern Sweden, in Skåne, which was organised by researchers. The participants were representatives of banks, who were invited to try to come up with solutions to various problems.

This role play exercise is now touring Sweden, and participants are generally agreeing that a break of services would cause minimal issues if it lasted less than four hours. However, a lot of shops stopped taking cash, and many are yet take Swish, the popular Swedish digital payment method using mobile phones, which means it could be difficult to buy anything should systems fail.

To use Swish, a mobile app needs to be connected to the user’s bank account. Nowadays, you see Swish numbers everywhere – written on signs at the florists on the market on Hötorget in Central Stockholm, or even on signs moved around by the homeless, selling the homeless magazine Situation Stockholm outside tube stations.