We supervise the financial markets“We need to make advancements in the fight against money laundering here and now, within the current system and regulatory framework,” asserted Erik Thedéen at the Swedish Bankers’ Association’s annual Bank Meeting.
Finansinspektionen (FI) strengthened its anti-money laundering supervision in 2019, in part by dedicating considerable resources to reviewing major Swedish banks’ governance and control of anti-money laundering measures in Baltic subsidiaries.
FI is opening a sanction case in the investigation into Swedbank AB’s governance and control of measures to combat money laundering in the bank’s subsidiaries in the Baltic countries.
FI’s Director General spoke today at the Finansdagen conference in Stockholm.
At a conference today, Deputy Director General Martin Noréus shared his views on capital adequacy in Swedish banks and how capital adequacy will be impacted by forthcoming regulations. Mr. Noréus also gave a process update on ongoing AML investigations and concluded that money-laundering risks will become a bigger consideration in prudential supervision.
During the month of July, FI sent notification letters to SEB and Swedbank as part of the investigations into the banks’ management and control of money laundering risks in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Heads of the Nordic and Baltic financial supervisors met today in Stockholm. They agreed on measures to enhance the cooperation between the authorities with the aim of fighting money laundering and terrorist financing.
FI sends verification letters at an early stage of its investigation process, and the aim of this letter is to verify the facts of the case. Verification letters may at times also include preliminary assessments, but these assessments assume that the information FI received is correct and has been understood correctly.
Over the past few weeks, the media has reported on potentially major problems related to money laundering primarily in Swedbank’s Estonian operations. These reports have caused the bank’s share price to fall and had a negative impact on the bank’s reputation.
FI has received a copy of Swedbank’s external review that was initiated by reports in the media of suspected money laundering in the Baltics.
