Anti-money laundering enforcement in Europe trended downward in 2020 but remained high overall, according to data compiled by ACAMS moneylaundering.com, and a previously dormant, seemingly lenient Nordic regulator led the pack. Sweden's Finansinspektionen, or FSA, issued Europe's largest AML penalty of the year, a record €360 million assessment against the country's oldest and largest lender, Swedbank, in March, after finding that senior managers in Stockholm failed to ensure that the institution's affiliates in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had effective AML programs in place from 2015 to 2019. Those failures enabled nonresident clients, many of whom hailed from former Soviet states,...
2019 was a remarkable year for Europe in terms of anti-money laundering and sanctions enforcement, marked by Transatlantic cooperation against illicit finance, a high-profile banishment from the Baltics and record penalties in France.
Eighty-six of the record 504 investigations the U.K. FCA was pursuing as of Apr. 1, 2018 targeted suspected financial crimes, compared to 56 such cases at the same point in 2018 and just 20 in 2016, according to the agency and data reviewed by ACAMS moneylaundering.com.
U.K. anti-money laundering enforcement plateaued last year in terms of quantity, but spiked in total value as a result of the Financial Conduct Authority’s record £163-million fine against Deutsche Bank.
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