If the red-green parties win this autumn’s election, the Social Democrats want to introduce a new bank tax. If that happens, the banks will raise mortgage rates. That is the message, among others, from SEB.

In the party’s spring budget proposal in April 2024, the Social Democrats included the introduction of an allegedly temporary tax on the banks’ net interest income. They claimed this would generate around 8.3 billion SEK “back to households and welfare for the rest of the year”.

– Unfortunately, the SD government is on the side of the banks, not the households, said the Social Democrats’ economic policy spokesperson Mikael Damberg.

The Left Party and Green Party also want to tax banks more heavily, but if such a tax is introduced following a red-green election win in September, the banks will counter by raising mortgage interest rates.

READ ALSO: Magdalena Andersson: New tax for the “rich” if we win the election

– That it will affect the banks’ interest rates is very likely, says Robert Boije, chief economist at SBAB, to Dagens industri.

Nordea and SEB have issued the same statement.

– Margins on mortgages today are very low. We operate in an open and competitive market, and if the conditions change, for example, if additional costs are imposed, that will have an effect, says Petter Brunnberg, press officer at SEB.

Mikael Damberg (S). Photo: Frihamnsdagarna, CC BY-SA 2.0

The Wrong Path to Take

Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson (M) has criticized the banks’ high profits but does not believe a bank tax is the right path. As recently as last week, she said that such a tax would likely be “passed on to customers”.

– We already have a bank tax, and customers have not benefited from it. And a new bank tax, as the Social Democrats want to add, only risks raising the cost of mortgages by several thousand SEK per month. That is not the right path, and the risk is that such a tax will hit bank customers hard, she previously told Expressen.

During the party leader debate this weekend, Simona Mohamsson (L) warned of a “tax shock” if Magdalena Andersson (S) becomes prime minister this autumn:

From the Social Democrats’ budget proposal for 2026:

READ ALSO: Tidöpartierna warn of red-green election win: “Tax shock”