Swedish National Debt Office

The first task of the Debt Office was to finance the ongoing war against Russia.

[1] The method of raising funds was to issue promissory notes called Riksgälds denominated in Riksdaler which was the Swedish currency at the time.

The reason why the funds could not be raised through the Riksbank was that its notes had to be backed by silver (commodity money) to two thirds, whereas no such restrictions applied for the promissory notes (credit money) issued by the Debt office.

This produced a heavy seigniorage-induced inflation, where the exchange rate for the promissory notes against silver was 1 to 4 in 1834.

[3] Since 2022 the Swedish National Debt Office is headed by Director General Karolina Ekholm, PhD in economics.