facing a natural drop in the use of cash by the swedish population, the riksbank is pioneering the idea of introducing a central bank digital currency, the "e-krona". such currency would have the same properties as cash, but in a digital form. in november 2016, the bank announced an ambitious research programme in order to help the bank decide whether it should start issuing "e-krona". the bank released its first interim report in september 2017 which outlined that "no major obstacles to the introduction of an e-krona have been identified".