International swap lines

Danmarks Nationalbank has swap lines with the European Central Bank (ECB) and Norges Bank. They enable Danmarks Nationalbank to offer its monetary policy counterparties liquidity in euro and Norwegian kroner. Danmarks Nationalbank previously had swap lines with the US Federal Reserve, but the latest one expired in December 2021.


Danmarks Nationalbank has FX swap lines with the European Central Bank (ECB) and Norges Bank. A swap is an agreement to exchange two currencies and later exchange them back again where all the details of the exchange have been agreed in advance. These agreements thus enable Danmarks Nationalbank to offer monetary policy counterparties liquidity in euro and Norwegian kroner. 

The agreement between the ECB and Danmarks Nationalbank runs for as long as deemed necessary and can be activated at short notice. The threshold for the swap line is 24 billion euro.  

Danmarks Nationalbank previously had swap lines with the US Federal Reserve (the Fed) in connection with the financial crisis in the autumn of 2008 and later the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020. The latest agreement with the Fed expired in December 2021.