The outlook for financial stability has improved somewhat, and uncertainty has decreased, but we are still in the middle of a recession. Higher costs for both interest payments and other goods and services are putting pressure on households and firms. The worsened global security situation is also imposing increased demands on the operational resilience in the financial sectorn. These are the conclusions of this year's first stability report.
The study confirms previous results showing that women are underrepresented in the stock market. The differences arise as early as three years of age, which shows that adults more often buy stocks for boys than for girls. We also see that men generally have larger stock portfolios than women throughout life, although women increase their stock wealth later in life.
In this analysis, we estimate how much Swedish listed and larger privately owned commercial real estate firms need to reduce their debt in a climate of rising financing costs and falling property values. We calculate the firms need to reduce their debt to maintain certain levels of interest coverage ratio and loan-to-value.
The higher interest rate means that households and companies need to make adjustments to their finances. Finansinspektionen (FI) is now seeing a decline in risk-taking. However, the change in the state of the economy and uncertainty regarding how long the higher interest rates will remain pose a risk to financial stability. Commercial real estate undertakings with high debt are particularly at risk should the interest rates remain high. These are the conclusions of the second Stability Report of the year.
The risks given the highest priority in FI’s consumer protection work for 2023 are unaffordable lending, unsuitable investment products and investment fraud.
Digitalisation introduces both opportunities and risks to the financial market. After conducting a new survey, FI has noted that broader regulation on how customer data can be shared with third-party providers could make it easier for consumers to compare financial products such as occupational pensions and mortgages.
Finansinspektionen has decided on an updated approach for assessing the size of the Pillar 2 guidance for Swedish banks. The updated method contains in part new intervals and an upper limit on how much the outcome of the sensitivity-based stress test can contribute to the final guidance.
In force from 2023-01-01