On September 6, 2025, Swedbank AB announced that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had closed its investigation into the bank without initiating an enforcement action. The Swedish lender added that the terminated investigation, which was launched in 2019, “concerned Swedbank’s historic disclosures of information.” Swedbank also confirmed that investigations launched by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Financial Services in New York were still ongoing. At the time of the disclosure, Swedbank was not able to predict the financial impact of the remaining investigations or when they might be concluded.
In 2019, multiple jurisdictions initiated investigations into Swedbank’s compliance programs after a television broadcast by a Swedish news outlet accused the bank of engaging in money laundering in Estonia. In its 2019 annual report, Swedbank announced that the Swedish and Estonian authorities had launched investigations into the bank’s compliance with anti-money laundering (“AML”) regulations. In the same report, Swedbank revealed that was also being investigated by U.S. authorities and that the investigations might “take several years” to complete. Since the 2019 broadcast, Swedbank has taken steps to address its AML shortcomings and has paid millions of dollars in fines to resolve alleged AML breaches, including SEK 4 billion (approximately $386 million) to Swedish authorities in 2020 and SEK 46.6 million (approximately $5.5 million) to Nasdaq Stockholm in 2021. In 2023, Swedbank Latvia AS also reached a $3.4 million settlement with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control to resolve its potential civil liability for 386 apparent violations of U.S. sanctions.
Swedbank Press Release – September 6, 2025 | Swedbank- 2019 Annual Report