The Norwegian Paradox: Why a rich country lacks capital markets depth

Norge er blant verdens rikeste land, og vi har verdens største statlige investeringsfond. Likevel peker ny analyse, utarbeidet av New Financial på vegne av Finansforbundet, på et paradoks: Norske kapitalmarkeder er langt mindre utviklet enn i våre nordiske naboland.

I denne engelskspråklige episoden møter vi Max Bierbaum fra tankesmien New Financial, som forklarer hvorfor Norge henger etter. Særlig på tilgang til egenkapital og venturekapital. 

Hva betyr det for gründere, innovasjon og fremtidig verdiskaping? Og hvilke grep kan tas for å styrke kapitaltilgangen i norsk økonomi?

ENGLISH:

Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, and we are home to the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. Yet new analysis, prepared by New Financial on behalf of Finansforbundet, points to a paradox: Norwegian capital markets are far less developed than those of our Nordic neighbours.

In this English-language episode, we speak with Max Bierbaum from the think tank New Financial, who explains why Norway is falling behind. Particularly when it comes to access to equity and venture capital.

What does this mean for entrepreneurs, innovation, and future value creation? And what steps can be taken to strengthen access to capital in the Norwegian economy?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

Villkommen till finanslunch med folk och tar vi och tom i dag ska vi göra gjort för. Idag är nog helt nyt på podcast nästan se urna på förnåd.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Men på det. Vi ska nämligen ha en engelsk gäst i studio. Vi ska ha en engelskä. Det är väl sedan enkel tysk, men vi har bestämt oss för att vi ska konversera på engelsk. Det tror jag är att en får del för alla parti. Och vem har vi i studio idag. Vi har varit så heldig att få i studio Max Birbom. Max Birbom är head of research and director på EU i en London-baser tänkang som heter nu fan show.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Ja, och det är en av det starke namn på en finansmarkeder och kapitalmarker i Europa.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Vi har skrivat en rapport om börja och därför har vi vit Max.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Velkommen till oss, Max. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Ja, welcome to the studio. And how come that you have, well, first of all, tell us a little bit about New Financial and why you have written a report about Norway. Yeah, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

It's a fair question. An obvious question. Why does someone from London who doesn't even speak Norwegian come to Oslo to talk about the financial markets in Oslo? So New Financial is a capital markets think tank. We were founded in 2014. And ever since we've been making the case for bigger and better capital markets in Europe. When we say bigger, we mean that we think the capital markets, financial markets in Europe need to grow to better support jobs, innovation, economic growth in every corner of Europe. And when we say better, we mean that the financial services industry can do a lot of good, can be a force for good, and we want to help the industry be that force.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

And the timing for that is uh quite perfect, isn't it? You started in 2014, but but now this is on the top of our agenda for the EU Commission, the Parliament, uh, the whole industry across Europe.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

We were launched a few weeks before Jean-Claude Juncker for the first time presented his capital markets union plans in the EU. And ever since we've been sort of following the debate. Um, I would say that in parts we've been shaping that debate. So even though we are based in London, um, we follow capital markets across Europe very closely with our research, with our perspectives, with our insights. Um, and of course, we also want to make the case for what I said, bigger and better capital markets. So we are um in partnership with the industry, but also with other stakeholders developing recommendations, proposals, ideas on how to strengthen that development of the capital markets in Europe.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Yeah, and and and when you say bigger and better, you you you compare it to the US, of course.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yes. I mean we we compare it within Europe first, um, because we see that even though European capital markets as a whole are relatively underdeveloped, for example, compared to the US, we see that within Europe, there are countries like Sweden, for example, like Luxembourg, like Ireland, that have very deep capital markets because it was a political priority in these countries. And so, yes, we compare the EU to, for example, the UK, now that the UK has left the EU, but also the US. But as you can imagine, sometimes, and especially now, it's quite tricky to compare ourselves to, for example, the US. Um, when I go to capitals across Europe and I say be more like the US doesn't really work. No, no. Um, hasn't worked in the past, uh, definitely doesn't work now.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

No.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Um, but if I say look what Sweden is doing, you know, there's no reason why other European countries shouldn't follow uh closely what the Swedish government has done to develop its capital markets. So we also compare countries within the EU internally.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

But in your let's uh let's to uh take a look at your report, uh Max. Um in your report you write about the Norwegian uh the Norway paradox. Uh and you also uh say that the Norwegian capital market is less developed, and and and and you talk about the market depth. Uh say some few words about uh the the main findings in the report.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Sure, very happy to because this is really at the core of what we do at New Financial. Um we have what we call our European capital markets model, and we are tracking the what we call the depth of capital markets. I'll come to that in a second. Um, in every European country across 30 to 40 uh metrics or areas of activity in the capital markets, um, to A, see how they develop over time, but B, as I mentioned, to also compare and contrast the different European countries with each other. And Finanzverbünde, our partner here in Norway, um, have asked us whether we could use this model to take a look at where capital markets financing in Norway is compared to your Scandinavian peers in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. And so what we measure is we effectively look at the capability of capital markets financing in the economy.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

So when we talk about capital markets depth, we look at, for example, how much money do Norwegian companies raise via equity issuance or via bond issuance? How much venture capital investment do startups in Norway attract? Um, how many IPOs do we see by Norwegian companies?

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

And how does that compare relative to Norwegian GDP? Because that allows us to compare the degree or the activity or the significance of capital markets financing in Norway with other economies.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So you look at the whole value what we call the value chain of the capital markets. And we have we are in the midst of a discussion in in Norway whether or not uh the capital market is uh well functioning or or not. Do we have a lack of uh of capital or or not? And and uh many of the authorities and the Ministry of Finance says that well, we have a lot, we have a lot of capital, it's enough capital. While others say, well, it's yeah, we have a lot of capital, but in some parts of this value chain, uh there is a lack of capital. So that's what actually you have been looking at.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

That is what we're trying to track. Um because we strongly believe that this is what the capital, the financial markets are all about. In the end, it's about connecting people or organizations with capital and those that need it. So that's that's startups, that's more mature businesses, that's people with ideas in in Norway and in other economies. And we want to see, you know, is what we're trying to achieve, is what we're trying to finance working, or are there gaps somewhere in that value chain? Um, how does that compare to other countries, and what can, in this case, Norway, learn from other economies? Uh the Norwegian paradox, what is it? Sure. So the Norwegian paradox is when you look at Norway and when you look at the Norwegian financial markets, one of the first things you'll see is that Norway is home to the largest investment fund in the world. Yeah. The oil fund or government global pension fund. Um and it's not unfair to expect that if a country is home to the largest investment fund in the world, it will also be a significant financial center. But actually that is more a perception than the reality, because as we all know, yes, the oil fund is large, it is very large, but it doesn't invest in Norway. And it doesn't invest in Norway for a good reason. I'm not going to make the case that it should invest in Norway. But once you remove the oil fund from the equation, and we just talked about capital, for example, you see that um the levels of long-term capital across retail investment, across insurance, across pension um funds are actually quite low and significantly lower than in other Nordic economies. And at New Financial, we often argue that capital is the starting point for deep and efficient and liquid capital markets. And if you don't have it, you will sort of struggle to channel it into the economy. And this is where we then wanted to look at well, where are the gaps, where are the problems, but also where are the strengths in Norway. Um, and you know, just trying to challenge that perception that Norway is a significant financial center because it is home to a significant significant investment fund.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Well, what what we are doing is uh kind of build uh every other uh capital market surrounding world because we are own 2.1% of every listed company on the globe.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

And that is except in Norway. That is why our capital markets model focuses on mainly focuses on domestic capital markets financing activity. Because if you looked at financial flows, there would be a lot of activity coming out of Norway because of the fund. But we don't see that generating a lot of capital markets financing activity in Norway yet, which is important to you know finance the economy here and and to to support economic growth, jobs, innovation.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

So uh in this value chain, where do you see where do Norway lag and where do we have some uh well-functioning uh instruments?

SPEAKER_01 10:29

So, first of all, our headline finding is that if we look at this uh capability of Norway to domestically finance its economy through capital markets financing, this capital markets financing relative to GDP is just over half of the Nordic average. Oh, that tells us that other Scandinavian countries, especially Denmark and Sweden, um, just have more capacity in the economy to finance businesses, to finance ideas, operations through capital markets financing. We see that Norway is especially struggling in anything relating to equity issuance. So we see more equity finance raising in other Nordic uh countries than in Norway. This is especially pronounced um let's say at the beginning of the value chain in venture capital investment. Um so over the last 10 years, venture capital investment in Norwegian startups uh collapsed by around two-thirds relative to GDP. This is unique in Europe. There's no other country in Europe where venture capital investment has decreased by that much. In fact, it is a sector that has grown significantly in most European countries and um EU capital markets on the whole have been lifted, especially by venture capital investment. So it's quite striking and unique to see that in Norway the opposite has happened. Um I'm sure you know, things like the debate around exit tax um doesn't help. But but but the fact is that you know, when you think about this full funding escalator, when you have less investment at the beginning of a company's journey, less VC money or fewer startups mean fewer scale-ups.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Fewer scale-ups mean fewer exits, for example, via IPO and the Oslo Stock Exchange. And overall, that can mean in the future less deals, less activity, and a smaller financial sector in Norway.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Okay, I but I guess you don't do research on you just do research on how it is and not why it is. I mean, in a way. Or do you do you have some thoughts on why is it that Norway like in uh, for instance, venture and startup uh capital?

SPEAKER_01 12:52

I mean what what we do do is we have this model, but then when we look at a certain country, we also speak to stakeholders in those countries from different sort of corners of the financial service industry. We talk to banks and asset managers, pension funds, investors, and so on. Um, and we have heard that, you know, for example, the exit tax has made it a lot more difficult, um, or let's say a lot less attractive for founders to start their company in Norway. And the more founders that you have that have a good idea, that want to start a business, but that say, I don't want to do it here because these are not the right conditions for me, the more that money will also follow them to other countries. Um, and then you have, you know, VC funds that don't look as much at Norway anymore as they might look at Sweden, for example. Um, is one thing we heard. We also see it in the, you know, when we track the development over time, that there has been a significant dip in venture capital investment right around the moment when the exit tax uh was was um discussed and also tightened.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Another reason so you can read the the kind of uh the consequence of the uh exit tax out of your uh statistics.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Yes. And especially in this case, you know, as you say, sometimes it's a bit difficult or you know, not as precise to try to find causes with something that happened in the data just because it happened around the same time. But but in this case, because we see that growth of venture capital investment in in virtually every other corner of Europe but Norway, I think it it's it's quite a sort of significant um change and and finding that that we can deduce from the data. The other thing that we see is in countries like Sweden but also the UK, the US, Denmark, basically anywhere where we have large pools of long-term capital, for example, through private pensions, through large pension funds, we see a higher level of venture capital investment because these funds are looking for long-term investments. Um they are basically in the perfect position to you know identify really good ideas, really good innovation, really good startups that they can invest in. And as I mentioned earlier, you know, once you take out the oil fund from the data, uh pools of long-term capital in Norway are relatively low. And the biggest difference between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden is the size of pension funds.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah, because we fund more of our uh pensions uh on a pay as you go system. But uh Denmark, Sweden typically fund their pensions along the way. They start to start earlier.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Uh they started earlier, but also you could make the argument in terms of affordability and sustainability of the pension system. No way doesn't really need large pension funds because you have the global pension fund that will effectively fund and finance the state pension forever. Yeah. But then the problem We hope. We all hope. Um, but then so of course, you know, financing people's retirements, securing people's retirements is the first priority for a pension fund.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

But then a happy consequence is that a pension fund wants to invest that money to generate those returns. And we see in Denmark and Sweden and other countries that a lot of that money finds its way into the domestic economy, especially in longer-term investments like a VC fund, like a startup infrastructure. Um, and that is something that Norway is missing right now.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

There are some uh corners of the capital market that is well functioning in Norway. And where we are in comparison to other countries better or have a deeper market, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 16:57

So so one uh striking development we've seen since we're talking about pools of long-term capital, um, the value of retail investment in Norway has significantly increased over the last 10 years, has more than doubled relative to GDP. Yeah. We think it's partly because of the ASK, the investment account that Norway introduced in 2017. Um probably partly because of low interest environments, younger people wanting to invest more. It's a trend we're seeing across Europe. Um, so that's that's really good to see. Another area where Norwegian capital markets or capital markets financing is working well, is the bond markets. Yeah. So there's more activity in bond issuance by Norwegian companies than in some of the other Nordic countries.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

And that that has something to do with what kind of industries we have, right? It's probably large capital-intensive industry industries, like oil, energy.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

It's the industry, and then based on this, you know, a very mature developed ecosystem with you know expertise in the system, with experienced investors. And we especially see that in the high yield bond market, um, which is probably not a surprise to many of your listeners, but that is a true success story that Norway has. We took a look at bond issuance in the high yield market, and around 40%, so nearly half of all issuance by value in Norway in the high yield market is from foreign issuers. And these are true foreign issuers. These are not, you know, companies from Denmark, Sweden, Finland. These are from outside the Nordics. Yeah. So that means they're coming here for a reason, and that is because the market is very well developed, it's very mature, there's a lot of expertise. Um, there's a relatively light touch regulation, for example, around documentation, disclosure rules. And that is something that is really working well. And what's interesting in the high-yield market is that based on my understanding, it was never developed with the intention to become an international leading market. It just worked well for the domestic economy. And because it worked so well, it became attractive for other issuers as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

So that might be one takeaway. You know, if if Norway wants to become a more significant international financial center, try to look at what is working well already, what can we learn from that? Yeah. And then any measures, you know, look at how they could make things easier, better for the domestic market, and maybe in turn also attract more international activity.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

But is it also kind of a cultural thing? Uh that Norwegians maybe we save uh more money in our house houses or in a bank account. Uh we are not that mature in saving in the stock market?

SPEAKER_01 19:51

I'm sure it is. It's a problem that's being mirrored across much of Europe.

SPEAKER_03 19:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Europe, you know, historically just hasn't been a continent of investors. Um, you know, I'm from Germany. Germans love to keep their money, not even in the bank, but under the pillow because they think it's safe. Yeah. Um and preferably in cash.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Yeah. So quite we're not that uh happier about taking risk with our investment. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

You know. Now, I would say keeping money in cash is the riskiest thing you can do.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Because through inflation, the money, the value of your money erodes over time. But that's then where culture meets financial literacy, financial education. As soon as I talk about money uh eroding in value inflation, I lose most people. Yeah. Um, so that is definitely something we we need to tackle across Europe, but also in Norway. One way of doing that is the introduction of these tax-incentivized savings investment accounts, which Norway has done with the ISK. There's ways we we talk about that in the report, how you could make the account even more attractive, simplify it. For example, the ISK in Sweden. They recently introduced a low allowance where you can um basically keep your returns tax-free so you don't pay any tax on that. That could be something Norway could look at, that there's a very small element where you never pay tax on it, could make it more attractive, uh, could interest people investing more of their money. And the other reform or measure that we've seen um turn out to be very successful in other countries is workplace pensions.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

So I know that in in Norway you are already being enrolled in a workplace pension when you when you join an employer, but the contribution rates are very, very low. Um, very low compared, especially to Denmark and Sweden. And if Norway increased these over time, automatically more people would start to invest their money because it just happens. You basically overcome that inertia, you don't actively Ask people to do something, you help them on the way.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

And we made it more easy to understand because now we have one pension account that follows you. No matter where you work. When you join, go from one employer to another. You you bring your own pension account and you can look at it on your mobile phone and se how it haven't money there is. Så that will increase. At the same time, it I think it's important to have steadig regulations because uh you mention es a kontor as uh as a kind of gudd examples or a success in i Norway. On the other hand, vi have uh IPS this uh tax uh vi have haft this tax system to to influence people to invest more uh in pension besides what they get från the state and their their employer. And and uh it has been changes all the time.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Uh how much people can can save each year, the tax uh rates and so on been changing all the time, and and then people don't bother about uh it started with 4,500 euros uh a year and then they uh set it down to 1500 euros a year, and then and now it's up to 2,500 euros a year, I think. Uh so uh and when you do that change is you just give up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

No, and and that's fair. It's it's something we're seeing in the UK as well, where we have workplace pensions, where we have a tax incentivized savings and investment account. But especially in the last, I want to say five, six years, the government in parts wanted to, in parts has done quite a lot of tinkering with some of the rules. Um, some were very small changes, some were more significant changes. But we see that even when the government is only thinking about it, that already has an impact on how people behave. And especially when it comes to things like saving, investing for the longer term, especially for retirement. You know, people want that stability that you mentioned. Yeah, yeah, because you you you kind of lock up your money for 20, 30, 50 years. So you want that confidence that whatever has been promised to you today will still be the case when you want to access that money 30 years down the line.

SPEAKER_02 24:30

I think that's a really important point.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Your report points at some parts of the kapital market in Norway that kind of lack kapital, and we are lagging behind our nordic peers. Why should politicians and authorities worry about that situation? Because it's I think in Norway we feel that well, things are going well. We are a rich country. We are happy. We have this oil fund that will save us no matter what happens. Uh, why is that a problem? Uh, except for the poor people who want to start up and don't get the money they need to kind of grow their great idea. Do we dance on the deco Titanic?

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Well, I hope not. Um I mean that is a question that we come across every time we talk about the capital markets in Europe. Because when we make the case for why they are important, we need people, policymakers, politicians, to understand why they matter in the first place. And it feels like that debate is has changed over the last two, three, four years. Because more and more, and I would be interested in your perspective on Norway on this, more and more policymakers across Europe understand that bigger capital markets, bigger financial markets are not do not just mean that there's more, you know, deals, more business for the financial sector, but that that also helps to address the many challenges, the many priorities we have in Europe. You know, starting from climate change, uh sustainability transition to financing defense, financing security, financing all of these things that we want to do in Europe. You know, public money won't be enough to do all of that. We need more private money to come to help with that. And for that, we need deep, efficient, liquid capital markets. So that's the sort of macro.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

It's a sense of urgency. That I don't think we have kind of gotten to in the in Norway yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

It it feels it's it's changed on the European level. So you know, we had these 10 years of capital markets union where there were some technical changes and we see statements.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I agree with the savings and investment union, simplification, uh, competitiveness. It's obvious that that Europe have kind of opened their eyes to this as a challenge.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Exactly. So maybe you know that the savings investment union could be that impetus, that sort of um call for action that also uh wakes up people in Norway. Um, but to to maybe give a more specific example, so we we talked about venture capital investment and startup founders before. The problem is when Norway or any other country loses a really, really good startup, is it doesn't just lose this one business and this one founder and maybe their tax receipts. We've seen time and time again that from successful startups, other startups, other ideas emerge. So when you look at you know the big American tech companies, it's a total ecosystem that you lose. And you see how many people have left those companies to then start their own really good companies. Um it's sort of this this snowball effect that the you you might lose one person, one idea now, but down the line there could have been 10 ideas and and 20 successful founders that emerge from that one idea. Um and as soon as you lose people to another country, um, you lose that ecosystem. They might then not list in your country, they might list somewhere else, um, generate more money, generate more tax receipts. So it's that that whole you know escalator um that is happening, that that people will then and the country will miss out on.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

I totally agree with you. And I and and and I think maybe the the Norwegian paradox is uh some kind of an explanation here. Uh it I mean uh it's going quite well in Norway. Uh the unemployment rate is 2% uh compared to any other nations in Europe. It's uh very, very low. And um we we we have big companies, oil, energy, fishery, uh, and it seems that everything is going just fine. We need a crisis, we need a deep crisis to understand that we have to do something and we have to develop the Norwegian economy in some other parts of the some other sectors than oil, energy, and and uh fishery actually. And then I mean the lack of the crisis is uh kind of what maybe the politicians don't need to uh to actually do something about this.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

I mean what one of the ways that I've heard um this problem being phrased is things are going fine, but are they actually going well? Yeah. So wh why stop where we are now, even though things are fine? Why not have more ambition? Why not aim for for higher? Um one way of thinking about that is when I say that capital markets financing relative to GDP is just over half as deep as the Nordic average, that means that there are companies that are not getting the financing they need. That means that there are companies that are not doing the investments they want to do. That means that there are startups that are not starting here, but maybe in Stockholm or Copenhagen or somewhere else. And why should Norway be you know content with missing out on all of all of these things? I think that's sort of you know it's a lack of urgency, but it's also ambitious.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

When we discuss this in Norway, often it it comes down to uh tax, and we have already discussed uh exit tax. We have uh specifically high uh taxation on on wealth and ownership and uh in companies in Norway, especially on on Norwegian owners that are not uh the same for foreign owners of Norwegian uh companies. This is a debate that are quite uh uh the the political um uh debate is quite harsh and uh are uh down in the trenches on on both sides. Uh so if we take uh taxation out of the equation, uh is there other things we can uh can do? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

So in our report we make five directional recommendations. They are not sort of at the technical level, they are almost like food for thought. Um the first area that we've identified, or the first recommendation we make, is for Norway to remove disincentives that exist in the system to create a true level playing field. Tax is one part of that. But also regulations and uh there's a lot of red tape. There's red tray, red tape, there's gold plating in in Norway, where Norway applies higher, stricter rules than other peer economies. There's the in parts relatively slow implementation of EU rules, and especially now where the EU is starting to simplify its uh framework for the financial markets. If Norway doesn't keep up with the pace, then Norway would be at a relative disadvantage. So the the first thing we basically say is you know, before Norway starts to make things better, stop making things worse. Um the second area we've identified, and we talked about that a bit, is building a true equity and investment culture, helping people to invest more of their money. Um, you know, it would not be surprising if people invest their money in a global tracker ETF or maybe even the SP 500. But just getting people to start thinking about what to do with their money will very likely also channel more capital into the Norwegian economy in the future. Third, we have said, and we also talked about this before, uh building on Norway's strengths. So looking at what is actually working well, why is the high-yield bond market so attractive, so internationally successful, and what are learnings that we can take from this and apply to other areas. Fourth, one thing we've heard during our research process is that the Norwegian financial ecosystem might be a bit too small to truly sort of deliver the service that that more Norway Norwegian capital markets financing might need. So we've said it would be good to see how we can get more entrance at sort of both ends of the financial ecosystem, more sort of challenges with innovative technological digital ideas that sort of disrupt the existing market. But maybe also one, two, three larger international investment banks that say, you know, we want to go to Norway and we want to help make things a success there. Um fourth, we said um sorry, fifth and finally, and we also talked about this, um just encouraging that greater political ambition because none of these things will happen if no one really says I want them to happen. We talked about Sweden as an example, Swedish capital markets, and that sort of really deep, really liquid ecosystem didn't just magically appear out of nowhere. It appeared because successive Swedish governments had a strategy and made this a political priority. Uh there was broad political consensus across parties, but also across you know the financial services sector, employees, employers, everyone wanted to make this a success. And look at Sweden now, it it has become a success. And um one sort of very tangible uh idea that we have is the Swedish government published uh a short paper last year, um, sort of outlining their what they call capital markets journey. So they have described how they think they got to where they got to. Um, they outlined four sort of pillars in in that strategy. Um it's around sort of increasing retail investment, um, increasing the size of pension funds to have that capital base, um, making the tax system attractive, and sort of keeping an open and innovative financial ecosystem. And we think Norwegian policymakers could do worse than look at these four pillars and almost use them as a test to sense check their own reforms. You know, where are we on these four questions? Is it a you know yes, no, maybe, and then use that as a starting point for further reforms and measures.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

This is uh really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

This is just uh it's nearly uh the same as uh RCO, Kardi, uh told the kommittee of Standing Kommittee on Finance in the parliament on Friday when they had the open hearing about the finance financial marketbok in parliament.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

And now we have uh now we have uh voice from London kind of stamp it as the true story. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Maybe just to say: you know, these are all things that other countries have already done. This is not reinventing the wheel. This is not doing something that no one has ever done before. It's just looking at what is working well in other markets.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

Yeah, it's not an experiment with a lot of risk and an unknown uh result.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

We have to say uh uh thank you very much very much to Max. Thank you for having us. Uh story is uh something they should dig deeper into. Yes. And uh the report is that is it official sambar?

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Yes. You can find it on the website av Finansförbundet. Batinå, readers kan alltså email med och en financer direkt och vi send a copy. Ja, bättre.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Vi är not tröj. Vi kan make rekommendations to gå into finansförbundet eno and read the report report där.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Och så ska vi tacka eminant present, på vanåt, det är en supär melden. Jannik. Vi får en bra se som är vanligt. We hears. Vi hörs.