Several banks have warned that the bank tax the Social Democrats want to introduce would lead to higher mortgage rates.
"The banks that say that may not be your banks," says Magdalena Andersson in Ekot's party leadership hearing.
The Social Democrats' proposal is for a tax to be levied on the banks' net interest income, that is, the difference between the banks' interest income and interest expenses.
It will be introduced when the banks' profits rise in the way they have in recent years, due to poor competition in the banking sector, the party's economic policy spokesperson Mikael Damberg tells TT.
Increase competition
According to Damberg, such a tax needs to be supplemented with measures to increase competition between banks.
"It is important to make it easier and cheaper to change banks, but then there also must be alternatives. That is why we want to use the state-owned bank SBAB to pressure the other banks to lower interest rates," he says.
Caused by the state
Magdalena Andersson's call to change banks is rejected by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M), who says it is "blaming oneself".
"It's the state that causes the problem itself. When we've finally brought down interest rates, then putting a new mortgage tax on the interest rates is going from one bad thing to another bad thing," he tells TT.
When asked whether the banks need to be pressured, Kristersson says that Swedish bank customers are already pressuring their banks.
But if the state imposes an active new tax on mortgages, then it will affect all mortgage holders. You can't blame the banks for the state imposing a new tax on the banks, he says.
