Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 20, 2026
2 min readLast updated: April 3, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleSweden’s FSA launched a review of Swedbank’s AML customer checks covering Dec 2023–Nov 2025. The move follows a DOJ case closure and saw shares slip as AML oversight becomes a 2026 priority.
By Johan Ahlander
STOCKHOLM, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Sweden's financial regulator said on Friday it will investigate whether Swedbank's customer checks were sufficient to meet the country's anti-money-laundering rules, in a fresh setback for the banking group following the end of a U.S. probe.
The investigation will cover the period from December 2023 to November 2025 and will include the bank's due diligence measures, the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) said in a statement.
"How banks and financial companies counter risks of money laundering and terrorist financing in their operations is a priority issue in the FSA's supervision in 2026," it told Reuters.
The FSA did not say whether the investigation was a routine measure or prompted by suspicions of wrongdoing.
Shares in Swedbank fell 1.3% at 0845 GMT, underperforming the European banking index, which was up 0.4%.
Swedbank referred all questions regarding the investigation to the FSA when contacted by Reuters.
The investigation into the country's biggest mortgage lender follows a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into alleged money laundering which was closed in January without any fine. The DOJ probe into Swedbank was tied to a Baltic money-laundering scandal that first erupted at Danske Bank.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander in Stockholm and Terje Solsvik in Oslo, editing by Louise Rasmussen and Elaine Hardcastle)
Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen) opened a review into whether Swedbank’s customer due diligence met anti-money-laundering rules between December 2023 and November 2025.
Yes. The review comes after the U.S. Department of Justice closed its Swedbank probe in January 2026 without enforcement, removing a major overhang from earlier AML allegations.
Swedbank’s shares fell intraday and lagged the European banking index after the FSA announcement, reflecting renewed regulatory uncertainty.
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