Response to interpellation 2025/26:226 on the government's management of the Swedish Payments Agency
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerns the government's management of the Payment Authority and the decision regarding the transaction account. M believes that the government has listened to the authorities' objections, as a system without a transaction account becomes safer, better, and saves resources 1. M argues that the absence of the account simplifies the authority's mission to prevent incorrect payments 2 and that the government is tackling the criminal economy 2. S believes that the government has wasted 200 million kronor on futile investments due to careless actions 3 4. S argues that the Finance Minister is not sufficiently transparent regarding the government's motives 5 4 and wants to provide the authority with tools to pinpoint gang criminals 5.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! Mikael Damberg has asked me why the government chooses to conclude the Payment Authority's work with a transaction account. He has also asked me what distinguishes the information the government has today from the information the government had when the decision on the transaction account was made. Finally, he has asked me whether I and the government took note of the Pensions Agency's and the Social Insurance Agency's input when the decision on the transaction account was implemented and what these agencies stated.
The Swedish Payments Authority was established in 2024 and has already performed work that has led to 120 million kronor in recoveries and prevented future payments. The authority's work has great potential even without a transaction account system.
The initiative to phase out the system with transaction accounts is a result of the government having listened to the objections that have come from the relevant authorities. Försäkringskassan and Pensionsmyndigheten expressed reservations in August 2025 regarding legislative changes that mean Utbetalningsmyndigheten shall not mediate any payments in the system with transaction accounts. They pointed then to significant risks with the introduction of a transaction account in the form of impaired efficiency, higher costs, and increased vulnerability. Utbetalningsmyndigheten also announced in August that they would not have time to deploy the system by 1 January 2027.
The request from Försäkringskassan and Pensionsmyndigheten 2025 changes the information position the government had when the decision on the introduction of a transaction account was made in 2022. The authorities also had certain objections at that time but supported the introduction of a transaction account in their referral responses. The views that the authorities presented in August 2025 were more serious and partially addressed new problems that have become clear to the authorities over time. There were therefore grounds to reconsider the system.
What is important for me is that we secure the payments from the welfare systems to the people who are entitled to them and need them. Our assessment is that a system without a transaction account will become safer and better and, moreover, result in a saving of the state's resources in the long run. The fight against incorrect payments and the criminal economy continues with full force, and the Swedish Payments Agency continues to be an important part of that work.
Since the interpellator reported that he was prevented from attending the meeting, the first deputy speaker granted that Ingela Nylund Watz (S) instead was allowed to participate in the interpellation debate.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister for Finance, for the answer!
We are talking about 200 million that were invested in vain when the government tasked the Payment Authority with introducing a system with a so-called transaction account. All payments from the state welfare systems were to be gathered in one place to gain better control over fraud and other matters.
It was, therefore, the current government that made the decision to introduce such a transaction account at the Payment Authority. But even in the underlying material the government had when the decision was made, there were warnings against introducing and consolidating such a system into one authority. The so-called establishment inquiry also submitted in February the views that it would be cost-driving, that it would not yield any significant effects, and that it lacked a clear added value to introduce such an account. But the government did not listen to this and proceeded anyway.
In an article in Svenska Dagbladet in September 2023, the Minister for Finance, together with key representatives for L, SD, and KD, gave clear assurances that the Swedish Payments Authority would work with a system with a transaction account. The authority therefore initiated the work. But the government suddenly changed its mind in the autumn and said that the authority should cancel this development work. In that way, the taxpayers lost 200 million kronor, which went down the drain.
The Government refers to new information regarding security and lack of added value. But the Government was aware of those concerns as early as 2022. When the Government gave the Swedish Payments Agency the assignment, it was therefore not news that those concerns existed.
Mr. Speaker! In order to gain clarity on this, as far as possible, we called the Minister for Finance to the Committee on Finance at the end of last year. We simply wanted to know how the government justifies wasting 200 million kronor. The Minister for Finance did not come to the committee himself but sent the State Secretary, who, with all due respect, provided very brief and unclear answers. Therefore, it is reasonable that the Minister for Finance is here today and brings clarity to the government's actions.
Mr. Speaker! In his answer, the Minister for Finance refers to a new information situation having arisen through a petition from the Pensions Agency and the Swedish Social Insurance Agency in August 2025. Their views are, according to the Minister for Finance, to be more serious and partially new.
I now wonder what these views are, and I want the Minister for Finance to account for them. If the Minister for Finance cannot do that, then the government's management of the Swedish Payments Agency cannot be regarded as anything other than negligence.
The point is that the authority should save money for the state by preventing fraud and errors. But the government's hesitant actions have instead cost the taxpayers 200 million kronor without anything being received for the money.
What we primarily need to know now is what circumstances have emerged after the government made the decision to place the transaction account at the Payment Authority. What is the partially new information that has emerged? From an outside perspective, it seems as if the government did not take part in or simply ignored the information that was already available in 2022 and 2023.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the question. For me, this is not very difficult. I am rarely hesitant. When I receive the basis for a decision, I can make a decision. Hesitation is perhaps not my strongest characteristic.
It is very important to me that this agency, which has finally been established under this government, truly works with the fraud and the scams that occur. The Swedish Pensions Agency's task – for those who do not know – is to ensure that citizens do not incorrectly receive multiple benefits from different systems that do not communicate with each other.
That a transaction account could be a tool was a very clear position. In the beginning, both advantages and disadvantages were raised. Now Ingela Nylund Watz highlights the negative consequences, but there were both advantages and disadvantages. Here I am humble. This is a type of activity where it is not self-evident how one should work with it.
It sounds roughly as if we quickly pressed a button and it was over. But it was a long discussion. I have thought a lot about what is best in the long run and what added value there is with a transaction account. When the authority arrived, we saw that it can perform the assignment without this account. That one has a transaction account means that all transactions, that is, payments from different authorities, should go into an account and that they should go through the Swedish Payments Authority. But the data from these authorities, one still has access to. The analyses that are needed to see where cheating, fraud, and other things arise can be done without a transaction account.
Discussions have been held with both the Swedish Payments Agency and other authorities, as I said in the response to the interpellation. It is quite obvious that the very best thing would have been if we had not started developing this. It was not obvious then, but it is now. To now pull the brakes and ensure that this is not developed will save quite a lot of money over the coming years, and the task can still be performed.
Mr. Speaker! It may be a bit of an exaggeration to talk about risks. When I took office, the plan was for the agency to be located in Södertälje. An agency that has data which almost belong to the most highly classified and which handles the population's various compensations was to be placed in a municipality that struggles and works hard against infiltration. Now, there was no good location there, but it was quite obvious to me that this was not the best solution. It was a rather risky environment. Therefore, I pulled the brakes and ensured that the agency ended up in another place: here in Stockholm. It could have been somewhere else in the country, but there was quite a lack of time.
The authority is doing good and will do good to push back the criminal economy but also fraud and deceit, so that tax money goes to the right people and to the right things. It will be incredibly important in the work of combating crime, but it is also about the trust in the entire system. There may have been a naive view on the trust between the citizens and the state; certain control functions are needed. But one can do this without a transaction account.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Mr. Speaker! I thank you for the supplementary information from the Minister for Finance.
I want to begin by emphasizing that the Minister for Finance will not be able to provoke me with the question of whether [the project] will be located in Södertälje or not. This interpellation debate is not about that.
Now it is so – for those of you listening – that we Members of Parliament have a responsibility to pose questions of control to the government. In this case, I wonder how the government has handled the fact that taxpayers have lost 200 million kronor due to clumsy management from the government.
We are in complete agreement that the Swedish Payments Authority shall play a central role in the work of combating the criminal economy. The Expert Group for Studies in Public Economics, ESO, very recently presented a report that presented entirely new and alarming figures on the extent of the criminal economy in Sweden. According to their definition, the criminal economy in Sweden is now assessed to comprise 352 billion kronor in turnover and 185 billion kronor in profit per year. This is significantly more than previous estimates that have been made of approximately 100 billion. It is incredibly alarming.
Against this background, it feels good that the Disbursement Agency is in place now. After the Social Democratic government took the initiative for the new agency and the current government completed the work, just as the Minister for Finance says, it has been in operation since 2024. As the Minister for Finance has pointed out, it has saved a number of funds in the form of clawbacks of over 100 million kronor. That is good. It demonstrates a high and unified competence within the agency.
It was however unfortunate that one received such a poor start, given that the government displayed such inconsistency and demanded that the authority should cease the work with the transaction account. It is naturally serious that the government has wasted 200 million kronor through this action, which cannot be regarded as anything other than careless.
The question is now how the government views the future of the Swedish Payments Authority. The government has said that the mandate shall be refined to detect and prevent incorrect payments, but does the government intend to stop there?
We Social Democrats want to give the Swedish Payments Authority tools to flag gang criminals. By mapping and flagging them, one can cut off the flow of money to their activities. The Swedish Payments Authority itself wants such a crime-prevention mandate and has support for this from both the Police Authority and the Swedish Economic Crime Authority, but the government says no.
Why not take advantage of the authority's competence now? It is naturally important that the authority detects and prevents individuals from deliberately, unintentionally, or due to a lack of knowledge taking or receiving a share of our common resources in an incorrect way. But when the authority now sees that one can in a concrete and clear way make a serious difference in the work against economic crime, I wonder: Can we afford to abstain?
During this debate, I feel that I have so far not received an answer regarding the government's motives for terminating the Payment Authority's work with a transaction account. I have not received any clear answer as to what information the minister has today compared to the information that was available when the decision on the transaction account was made. It is difficult to interpret what the wording in the interpellation's response regarding a changed information situation and more serious and partially new problems actually means. Here, the Finance Minister, in my opinion, is not sufficiently transparent. Finally, the Finance Minister is also not clear about whether the government took into account the views that the Pensions Agency and the Social Insurance Agency submitted as early as 2022.
Finansministern Elisabeth Svantesson (M)
Mr. Speaker! Of course, the government receives views from different sides when building up a new and important agency that has a very difficult but important mission.
Mr. Speaker! If there is any government that has tackled both the criminal economy and fraud with different types of benefits, it is precisely this one.
We have, for example, a census that means we currently have better control than ever before on how many and who are in the country. We have never, I want to assert, had such a good picture of precisely this. It is a completely fundamental prerequisite for being able to combat human trafficking, trafficking and other things that affect people, but also to combat the serious crime, where one cheats the systems out of money and makes money by selling drugs and much more.
We have also strengthened Försäkringskassan's capabilities to, for example, detect incorrect payments of vab.
Perhaps the biggest problem in Swedish public administration has been that authorities should not access each other's information. It was a very fine thought at the beginning, but we are now breaking that confidentiality to get crime under control.
My point is that it is important that everything is done correctly when such an authority starts and is built up. But at different crossroads, the decisions are not always self-evident.
We proceeded with a transaction account and weighed the pros and cons of it. We see then, over time, that the task Utbetalningsmyndigheten has can be solved without this.
Will the Swedish Payments Agency receive new assignments in the future? I absolutely do not rule that out. Now it must gain even more speed and pace in what it currently does. Just as Ingela Nylund Watz says, it is wise that it should also contribute to crime fighting in more ways.
I ultimately see not having the transaction account as a way to purify the agency's mandate. Here, one can focus entirely on the core task, which is to prevent, preclude, and detect incorrect payments, because one has access to the data that no agency has had collected before. It provides a very good basis for reaching much of the fraud in the subsidy systems.
Ingela Nylund Watz (S)
Mr. Speaker! 200 million kronor is quite a lot of money. For most, it is an unimaginably large amount. In the government's budget, it may not be the largest item. There is much else that is much more expensive. But 200 million kronor is still 200 million kronor.
It is exactly what the taxpayers have lost because the government has handled the decision that the Swedish Payments Authority should establish the transaction account in an unskilled and careless manner.
I have not received any answer as to what information the minister has today compared to when the government made the decision on the transaction account. It is very difficult to decipher what the Finance Minister means by that a changed information situation has arisen and more serious and partly new problems.
It would be very simple for the Minister for Finance to report here to Parliament and the Swedish people what it stands for. What is the new information situation and the partially new problems that have made the government and the Minister for Finance think that it was worth sending 200 million kronor in drinking water?
Finally, the Minister for Finance is also not quite clear as to whether the government actually took into account the views that Pensionsmyndigheten and Försäkringskassan had when the proposal to introduce a so-called transaction account was referred for consultation.
It becomes a bit strange that the government, via the Minister for Finance here in the Riksdag today, cannot answer what the concrete differences were in the information from the point in time when the decision regarding the transaction account was made until the autumn of 2025.
It is not a particularly long time span. It should be quite simple for the Finance Minister to list a number of serious issues that have caused one to change one's mind. But given the criticism that the Finance Minister has received over the past week from the Fiscal Policy Council regarding his fiscal policy, it is probably not so strange that one also slacks off on this.
FÖRSTE VICE TALMANNEN
The Minister for Finance waives his closing remarks.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.