The five largest banks in Sweden have launched the Swedish Anti Money Laundering initiative (SAMLIT) with Swedish police

To join forces in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, the Swedish police authority and the five largest banks in Sweden – Danske Bank, Handelsbanken, Nordea, SEB and Swedbank have launched a new anti money laundering initiative, SAMLIT, short for Swedish Anti Money Laundering Initiative.

„The initiative will start as a pilot project with the goal of being fully launched in 2021.”, according to the press release.

“This is a very important step in the fight against financial crime. Like a chameleon, this type of crime is constantly changing form and pattern, so for us, this collaboration means increased efficiency and proactivity. We hope that the experience gathered in the pilot project, will lead to even better possibilities to share information about suspicious activities between banks,” says Johanna Norberg, Country Manager, Danske Bank Sweden.

Shared information
The Money Laundering Act empowers the police authority to request information from banks bilaterally, but within the framework of SAMLIT, the Financial Police and the five major banks will now have the opportunity to collectively share information on methods, suspicious transaction patterns and new types of crime that have been jointly identified.

A pilot project to evaluate and test new methods for sharing information under current legislation will run from June to November 2020 before the initiative will be officially implemented in 2021 with more banks expected to join the scheme.

Nordic and European cooperation

In Denmark, a close collaboration with Finance Denmark has led to 25 joint recommendations for how the financial sector and the authorities can improve their efforts to combat financial crime. On a Nordic level, Danske Bank is developing a platform for handling and administering KYC data with the five largest banks in the Nordics.

Danske Bank is also represented in a European AML taskforce, led by the independent think tank Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), to develop recommendations for an improved EU regulatory framework on anti-money laundering.