Riksbank plans comms drive to mark 350th anniversary

Sveriges Riksbank will celebrate its 350th anniversary in 2018. The institution will use the occasion to reach out to the wider Swedish society to remember its history, explain the role it plays today in the economy and the new challenges it faces.

When the central bank turned 300 in 1968, it celebrated the occasion by donating an endowment in perpetuity to recognise the academic contribution of veteran economists. The first winners, in 1969, were Dutchman Jan Tinbergen and Norwegian Ragnar Frisch, “for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes”. They became the first winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics.

This time, however, the Riksbank does not aim to create another internationally renowned award. Instead, it wants to enhance the knowledge about its role among the general public and enrich the debates about its policies.

“The primary objective is to use the anniversary as a platform to reach a broader audience to explain what we do, the challenges faced in the past and what we need to do in the future,” says Ann-Leena Mikiver, director of communications at the central bank.

The celebrations will be based on three main topics: the historic role of money in contemporary societies and its evolution towards new forms of payment such as electronic currencies; monetary policy as a tool to preserve the value of money; and the lessons learned from the global financial crisis.

The central bank will organise open forums where Swedish thinkers and politicians will discuss the policies implemented by the Riksbank and its future projects. Topics will range from the negative interest rates introduced in 2015 in response to low inflation to the diminishing demand for cash and the possible introduction of a digital currency.

The institution will also have an open-house day at its headquarters in September. The conferences and forums will also go beyond the capital, Stockholm. A regional tour will reach six former locations of the central bank across Sweden.

“We work quite hard to be a transparent central bank to gain the trust of the general public,” says Mikiver.

The highest point of the anniversary will be held on May 25, when the Riksbank will organise an international conference and a dinner alongside the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag.