Report identifies major breaches of AML obligations in Swedbank Estonia

An internal Swedbank report identified major breaches of anti-money laundering obligations involving its business in Estonia, Swedish public broadcaster SVT said on Tuesday after having obtained a copy. Swedbank said the draft report cited by SVT had been included in a wider external investigation which it announced last week and had been made available to authorities.

The Swedish bank conducted a review of its Estonian branch after rival Danske Bank revealed its operation there had been used to funnel some 200 billion euros ($227 billion) of suspicious payments between 2007 and 2015. "Major breaches of AML obligations identified in Swedbank Estonia," SVT quoted the English summary of the report, written by a Norwegian lawyer, as saying.

SVT also said that Swedbank, which is the subject of a joint investigation by Swedish and Baltic regulators, accepted customers posing a high risk of money laundering and "failed to report suspicious transactions and activities." Swedbank said it was continuing to conduct a deeper analysis of the information and working with external partners and authorities in investigating the money laundering allegations.