Swedbank fined in Stockholm over historic anti-money-laundering failures

Take note – story published 2 years ago

The Disciplinary Committee at Nasdaq Stockholm on May 5 ordered Swedbank to pay a fine of twelve annual fees, equivalent of SEK 46.6 million (EUR 4.57 million) over historic failures in the field of anti-money-laundering measures linked to its Baltic operations.

"As Swedbank stated in its Q1-report on April 27, the issue concerns historical matters dating back to 2016-2019. The Disciplinary Committee states that Swedbank over a long period of time had shortcomings in its AML processes and routines and that the shortcomings were known to the bank’s former top management for a long period of time," said a statement frmo Nasdaq Stockholm.

During March, Nasdaq Stockholm AB (Nasdaq) informed the bank of the conclusions of its review as to whether the bank had breached the Nasdaq’s rules during the period December 2016 to February 2019.

Later, the review was handed over to the Disciplinary Committee of Nasdaq Stockholm which has now decided the matter. Swedbank stated in the quarterly report on April 27 that the bank largely concurs with Nasdaq’s conclusions.

”During the last year, the bank has undertaken several measures to strengthen processes for the disclosure of information. Today’s decision means that yet another issue concerning the bank’s historical shortcomings, is closed,” said Jens Henriksson, President and CEO of Swedbank, his words amply demonstrating how keen Swedank is to put the whole thing behind it.

The bank had expected that the Disciplinary Committee of Nasdaq Stockholm would decide on a fine and therefore allocated SEK 30 million for the purpose, but the fine turned out to be considerably bigger.

Nevertheless, the sanction is far smaller than the record SEK 4 billion (EUR 392 million) fine already imposed a year ago by Sweden's financial watchdog for the same deficiencies, and for allegedly not being completely open with the regulator. 

As previously reprted by LSM, though many of the biggest money-laundering allegations concerned operations in Estonia, the Latvian wing of the company was also considered to have pursued high-risk customers

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