Sweden: Siltanews – News Desk
A snowstorm swept in across Sweden, with the east coast taking the worst hit. In the morning, heavy snowfall and winds are expected along the Gävleborg coast and Uppland, down to Stockholm’s northern municipalities. In Gävleborg, the intensity of the snowfall will subside in the afternoon and not until the evening in Uppland, writes Swedish weather agency SMHI on its website.
There’s also a yellow warning in place for the Västerbotten coastal region, including Umeå and Skellefteå, where snow in combination with wind could cause traffic problems.
The director general of Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority, FI, urged Swedish households to keep accounts with several banks. The reason is that banks are increasingly being targeted in cyber-attacks, so it’s safer to put your eggs in several baskets.
“You can have accounts in several banks. You can have bank cards, you can have Swish and another things,” Daniel Barr told Swedish public radio SR’s news program Ekot, referring to the popular mobile phone payment app. “If either of those means of payment disappear for a period of time, you have other ways of paying.”
His comments came after FI warned in a new report that the worsening geopolitical situation in Europe may lead to an increasing number of cyber-attacks against Swedish companies and banks.
After several year of rising prices, household costs are expected to remain unchanged next year, predicts the Swedish Consumer Agency in its annual forecast. The report generally expects costs to increase every year, and they soared after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The costs of personal hygiene, furniture and household equipment are expected to fall, as are electricity prices. Then you of course don’t know if it’s going to get really cold or a nuclear power plant will have a hiccup, Kristina Difs, an analyst at the Swedish Consumer Agency, told the TT news agency. Expenditures for water and sewage as well as home insurances are expected to increase, and the cost of food is expected to remain unchanged. The forecast includes around 40 percent of household costs based on what’s necessary to lead “a good everyday life”. Large expenditures such as property and transport are not included.