Private persons, companies and associations need to be able to withdraw and deposit cash into their accounts and sometimes get help to pay bills in cash. Since 2016, the supply of such services has decreased, as you can see in Figure 6. However, this decrease has slowed down over the last two years. This may be related to the fact that, since 2021, some banks have a shared responsibility to provide places where private persons can withdraw cash and where companies and associations can deposit their daily takings. The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) is responsible for supervising the banks to ensure they take this responsibility.

Number of locations for cash withdrawals, deposits of daily takings and over-the-counter payments.

Figure: Figure 6. The supply of cash services has decreased over time

However, banks have no obligation, for example, to help their customers pay their bills in cash. Today, this service is available in only 139 locations in the country, of which 113 are savings bank branches. If you are not a customer of a savings bank offering cash services, you can only get help to pay bills in cash at the company ChangeGroup’s 26 branches, which are mainly located in southern Sweden.

Neither are banks obliged to offer solutions for private persons to deposit cash into an account. There are currently no comprehensive statistics on the number and location of such deposit points. According to Bankomat AB’s map, it had 391 deposit machines in the country in February 2024. However, these only accept banknotes and not coins. Customers of ICA Bank and Swedbank can also deposit cash at the checkout in most ICA stores.

Cash services are automated

Cash services in Sweden increasingly consist of ATMs and deposit machines, while forms of service such as manual cash services are declining. All major banks have stopped offering cash services over the counter in their branches and only some savings banks still do so in a total of 126 branches, according to the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth’s Pinpoint Sweden Service Analysis. In addition, ICA Bank offers its own and Swedbank’s customers withdrawal and deposit facilities at the checkout in most ICA stores. However, customers can withdraw a maximum of around SEK 2,000 per withdrawal and only subject to the amount of cash in the store’s cash register.

Places where companies can deposit their daily takings are also increasingly made up of automated deposit machines, as you can see in Figure 7. The Riksbank has received indications that companies feel that the upper limit for the amount of cash they can deposit in these machines is low. This risks making it more difficult for companies that handle cash, which you can read more about in Section Are payments in Sweden safe?.

Locations for deposit of daily takings, number per type of service.

Figure: Figure 7. Deposit machines becoming increasingly common for daily takings deposits