According to the Sveriges Riksbank Act, the Riksbank shall promote a safe and efficient payment system. This determines the focus of the work at the Financial Stability Department. The department's task is to foster the ability of banks and key parts of the financial infrastructure to perform their roles as payment intermediaries and acceptors of deposits. They should also carry out these activities in an economically efficient way. The Financial Stability Department uses a number of interacting methods and channels in its work. On the one hand the department oversees regularly the risks in and resilience of important financial institutions and markets and, on the other, it conducts short-term analyses to illustrate specific issues.
Ultimately, the aim of the department’s work is to produce background material for measures taken by the Executive Board to prevent or deal with shortcomings in or threats to the stability or efficiency of the financial system. The department strives to identify and address potential disturbances to stability at an early stage and to prevent them from growing worse. It does this, for example, through discussions with concerned market participants or by influencing their behaviour via increased transparency and knowledge dissemination regarding the issue in question. At the same time, the department has drawn up extensive plans for managing a financial crisis in the event that one should nevertheless arise.
The Financial Stability Department cooperates with a number of Swedish authorities, in particular with Finansinspektionen (the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority) and the Ministry of Finance. These authorities have different, though mutually complementary, roles in matters relating to financial stability and crisis management. Outside Sweden the department participates in a large number of committees and working groups with various purposes, for instance in the ECB/EU, the BIS and the G10. Some of these work on creating internationally harmonised regulations and guidelines for financial institutions and markets, while others analyse current or expected developments in different factors that affect financial stability in a region or globally.
The main part of the department’s work is devoted to producing a detailed, biannual report on financial stability. The report describes the current situation and developments in a number of factors that influence stability. These include financial, structural and other strengths and weaknesses that can be identified in various borrower categories, in the macroeconomy, in the banks and in the financial infrastructure. Where relevant, for example regarding countries where Swedish banks have extensive operations, developments outside Sweden are also analysed. Moreover, the report includes an assessment of the ability of banks and the infrastructural systems to manage the identified weaknesses – their resilience.
The Department is also responsible for risk management issues, with the aim of providing an independent check of the Riksbank's financial risks. The financial risks stem mainly from the management of the gold and foreign currency reserve, the implementation of monetary policy operations and from transactions in the payment systems.
You can find more detailed descriptions of the department’s work under the link "Financial stability" in the main menu.
Organisation
The Head of the Financial Stability Department is Martin Andersson and the Deputy Head is Mattias Persson and Anders Kragsterman. The department has a staff of 36. The department is divided into two divisions: The Division for Financial Infrastructure Analysis (EFI) and the Division for Financial Stability Analysis (EFS).