Skandiabanken has ordered every branch in Sweden to hold a daily public procession carrying the three-month mortgage rate on a raised wooden board, after raising that rate by a quarter of a percentage point. Staff in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö have been issued identical gray coats and instructed to march at a steady pace through their districts from nine in the morning until the bank closes.
The bank's head of retail lending, speaking from a podium in Solna, said the procession was a matter of transparency. "Customers are entitled to see the shortest rate with their own eyes, at walking pace, for as long as it takes to reach the front door. Our fixed-term listed rates remain exactly where they were, and we will be marching past those too, though more slowly."
Local councils have since asked the bank to reroute the parade away from pedestrian crossings and school zones. The request was forwarded to a newly created committee on procession routing, which now meets every Tuesday in a room that has been reserved for it by the bank's own facilities department. Two members of the committee have already been assigned to walk the route ahead of the marchers to measure the width of each pavement.
The bank has also introduced a rule requiring any employee who misquotes the three-month rate to march an additional kilometre at the end of the day. Several staff members in Uppsala have reportedly begun carrying small placards with the rate written in large capital letters, so that they can recite it correctly while walking.