The Swedish Financial Supervision Authority (FSA) is opening a sanction case in the investigation into Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB's (SEB) governance and control of measures to combat money laundering in the bank's subsidiaries in the Baltic countries, reported LETA/BNS.
The decision on whether to open a sanction case is part of the watchdog's investigation process.
Inherent in this decision is that the FSA considers there to be sufficient grounds for assessing whether the deficiencies and weaknesses observed during the investigation should lead to a sanction or if the investigation should be closed in another manner.
The FSA will continue to analyze the circumstances in the matter as well as legal issues until the next step in the sanction process.
The authority will then send a letter to the bank that describes the FSA's observations and accounts for the legal basis on which the watchdog considers there to be grounds for considering an intervention.
The letter will also request the bank's opinion on the matter, the FSA said.
The watchdog plans to communicate the outcome of the sanction case in the investigation into SEB in April 2020.
Regarding the sanction case in the investigation into the same matter at Swedbank, the FSA plans to communicate the outcome in March 2020.
The authority's investigation into SEB's governance and control of measures to combat money laundering in the Baltic region is being conducted in cooperation with the supervisory authorities in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
This means that the supervisory authorities are coordinating their activities and sharing information and assessments.
SEB said on Wednesday that, as part of its ongoing supervisory review, the Swedish FSA has informed that it is initiating a sanction evaluation process regarding SEB AB's internal control and governance of its subsidiary banks in the Baltics.
"The bank has not received the FSA's preliminary assessment that has led to the evaluation.
SEB works in full transparency with the FSA," it is said in the statement. ■