Financial markets

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.

Under a proposal referred by the Ministry of Finance today, the Swedish Government should be able to issue regulations prescribing that companies domiciled outside the EEA can be exempted – for a certain period of time – from the requirement to hold a licence from Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) to provide investment services.

Today the Government adopted guidelines for the management of the central government debt. The maturity steering of the nominal and inflation-linked krona debt are merged. As a result, the maturity interval of the krona debt is changed to between 4 and 6.5 years. The steering of the composition of the debt is left unchanged.

The financial sector has a leading role in efforts to move towards a fossil-free society. This role and a new European Commission Action Plan were the subjects of the high-level conference on financing sustainable growth held in Brussels on 22 March, attended by Minister for Financial Markets and Consumer Affairs Per Bolund.

French Minister for Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, and Swedish Minister for Financial Markets and Consumer Affairs, Per Bolund, commit to strengthen their collaboration to promote green and sustainable finance and to live up to the Paris Agreement.