Swedbank undergoes fresh regulatory examination after Sweden’s financial regulator launched a new investigation into the bank’s anti money laundering controls.
The Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) of Sweden has announced that it will review Swedbank’s anti-money laundering procedures, whether Swedbank’s customer check processes have met national anti-money-laundering requirements, this announcement presents a new regulatory challenge for the lender shortly after the conclusion of a U.S. investigation.
The investigation will cover the period from December 2023 to November 2025 and will focus on the bank's customer due diligence measures and internal processes. During the investigation, the regulator will determine whether Swedbank effectively monitored customer activity and met standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist funding.
In 2019, authorities started looking into Swedbank's past anti-money laundering procedures. After Danske Bank revealed in 2018 that around €200 billion in possibly questionable funds had passed through its Estonian office between 2007 and 2015, the institution was drawn into the regional crisis.
Swedbank's stock dropped around one-third in 2020 as a result of the investigation. Birgitte Bonnesen, the bank's former CEO from 2016 to 2019, was found guilty of gross fraud in 2024 for making false claims and received a 15-month prison sentence. The Supreme Court is now considering an appeal of her case.
The authority stated that safeguarding banks' ability to counter financial crime risks remains a top supervisory focus. It also stated that increasing oversight of money laundering threats will continue to be a priority in 2026. The regulator did not specify if the evaluation was part of routine supervision or a response to specific concerns about Swedbank's compliance.
