Field:

Access to basic payment services

– final report

The government has tasked Growth Analysis to manage and develop data about basic payment services. The task also includes suggesting demarcations for the specified payment services to be analysed, performing analyses and making these data and analyses available to county administrative boards.

Reporting of the undertaking can be summarised in the following points:

  • Yes, Growth Analysis is managing and developing the database, and this year has updated all parts of the database. The database has been augmented with current, relevant information ahead of reports on undertakings from the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS), the county administrative boards and Growth Analysis.
  • Yes, Growth Analysis is conducting a continuous review of the content of the database in order to be relevant for all users. Demarcations and considerations take place continuously in order to meet both the needs of county administrative boards for analysis material and Growth Analysis' resource framework.
  • Yes, Growth Analysis has analysed data relating to basic payment services from an accessibility perspective. These analyses form the basis of work by the county administrative boards and PTS to really guarantee accessibility to basic payment services. Growth Analysis’ ambition is in future to report these together with developments regarding other services in the service report that Growth Analysis publishes every other year.
  • Yes, we are continuing to develop a special, web-based interface so that the county administrative boards' administrators can not only access data and analyses in an intuitive, effective way, but can also themselves contribute updates and quality improvements to the database. Development of the database is taking place in a dialogue with representatives of the county administrative boards and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth.
  • Yes, we are trying as far as possible to coordinate data about basic payment services with our current undertakings relating to other commercial and public services. Work is in progress to harmonise data in the payment database with other service data.

Analysis results:

Over 30,000 people in Sweden had more than 30 km to travel to their closest cash withdrawal point at the time when the complete update was done in September 2015. The corresponding figure for cash withdrawal after an update of bank paydesks in October is almost 37,000 people (mostly because of Handelsbanken’s decision to turn 95 of their banks into non-cash facilities). Almost 53,000 people have more than 30 km to travel to their closest payment transmission facility. Around 1,100 workplaces with cash-intensive activities have more than 30 km to travel to their nearest service facility for cash manage­ment. The number of service locations for these three kinds of service has fallen since 2013. The change in accessibility to the services does, however, vary between different parts of the country.

The substantial deterioration in access and accessibility to both cash withdrawal and payment transmission facilities that was noted during 2014 (as a result of Finans­inspektionen’s decision to withdraw Exchange Finans’s permit to conduct payment services) improved greatly during 2015 even if the service did not always come back to the same places as before.


Access to basic payment services – final report

Serial number: PM 2015:20

Reference number: 2013/030

Download the report in Swedish Pdf, 2 MB.

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