The report presents the conclusions of Danmarks Nationalbank’s oversight of the Danish payments infrastructure in 2022. The core payment and settlement systems as well as the key payment solutions comply with international safety and efficiency standards to a high degree. Continuous action is taken to counter the cyber threat, but it is not possible to implement safeguards that provide full protection against the most sophisticated attacks. It is therefore important to continue the work with crisis management planning and the ability to handle serious cyber incidents.

Danmarks Nationalbank posted a loss of kr. 8,464 million in 2022, against a profit of kr. 194 million in 2021. The loss was primarily due to capital losses on the bond portfolio as a result of the higher interest rate level.

For the first time, Danmarks Nationalbank discloses the climate footprint from the part of its foreign exchange reserve that is invested in securities issued by governments, regional authorities and companies. With the disclosure, Danmarks Nationalbank aims to contribute to greater transparency about the climate footprint of financial portfolios, in line with other European central banks.

A government budget surplus reduced central government debt by approximately kr. 115 billion to kr. 323 billion at the end of 2022, equal to just under 12 per cent of GDP. Rising interest rate levels in 2022 meant that the average yield to maturity on nominal government bonds issued in 2022 was 1.13 per cent p.a., which is the highest level since 2013. However, the rising interest rates do not affect interest costs on that part of the central government’s nominal debt which has already been raised.