I might have the same employer, and the kind of company we and Accenture are don't primarily focus on this tech, but usually have a wide variety and ever changing list of options for a masters thesis.
The poor people have bank accounts, because if you're poor and getting some gov't assistance, that gets transferred to a bank account (I mean, how else? No non-financial institution or gov't agency is going to employ tellers handing over cash directly, they all use banks for that, and checks aren't used); it's general EU policy that basic financial services (bank accounts, bank transfers, electronic bill paying, card payments) should be available to everyone including the very poorest. Even a homeless, unemployed drug addict would be expected to have access to these services.
If you don't mind me asking what company do you work for? I am actually studying computer science (security and privacy emphasis) at KTH in Sweden and I have been interested in CBDC for some time now. If your company offers master's theses I would love to connect on LinkedIn or via email.
> the other one is how to live up to the requirement from the government that the currency needs to be liquid also during a crisis (what if electricity or telecom doesn’t work?)
This is the first thing I thought of when reading the article. Since you seem to have some knowledge about the field, what are some proposed solutions to this problem?
The article mentioned something that I find particularly interesting:
> Sweden is the least cash-dependent country in the world, making it a litmus test for how central banks can react to people using less of the money they print.
To be honest I had my suspicions that this was the case. Anecdotally, I have lived in Sweden since August of 2018 and I cannot recall a single time where I have carried cash in my wallet or used cash for a transaction in Sweden. If I am not paying with a credit/debit card I usually just use Swish (similar to Venmo or Cash app for US readers, except it's operated by several Swedish banks and I believe the Swedish central bank).