The traffic in the country's card terminals shows how increased electricity prices, general inflation, higher interest rates and the Ukraine war affect Swedes' desire to buy.
- The trend in the last six, seven months has been quite clear downwards, says Andreas Wallström, chief strategist at Swedbank, and adds that there has been a slight increase now during the "Black week" advertising campaign.
Compared to a year ago, Swedbank Pay's terminals show that consumption has fallen by 8 percent when inflation is excluded.
The terminals handle more than half of all card transactions in Sweden.
You can therefore say that Sweden is buying diet.
The latest numbers are from last Saturday.
The Riksbank's interest rate statement
On Thursday, the Riksbank will issue a new interest rate announcement, which Andreas Wallström believes will be an increase of 0.75 percentage points to 2.5 percent.
Then the policy rate would reach the highest level in 14 years.
- As recently as February, the Riksbank indicated that the interest rate should be kept unchanged, says Andreas Wallström.