The Swish payment service is the Swedes' new favorite payment aid. Today, Swish is not under the direct supervision of Finansinspektionen and does not have its own payment service permit. Instead, it is Swish's owner, ie the Swedish banks, who will report suspected cases of money laundering or if the service is used to finance terrorism. According to the fiscal alert to the Ministry of Justice, there is no overview of money swish between the banks.

With a payment service permit, GetSwish AB, which operates and owns the Swish service on behalf of the banks, would have its own reporting requirements and the opportunities for direct supervision would increase significantly. The police have previously alerted both SVT and the Ministry of Justice that the company and its owners have no control over how it is used. For example, it is easy to get around Swish's daily maximum limit of SEK 150,000 by repeatedly deactivating and activating the app.

"Technical tool or own service?"

By moving Swish into the financial finery, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority would require the company to report suspicious transactions and the police would have a completely different opportunity to go directly into Swish systems.

Finansinspektionen has now started a dialogue with Getswish AB and this to get a picture of whether the company is just a purely technical solution or whether the company has a responsibility for the payments that are made in its system. Credit cards like Mastercard and Visa are also used instead of cash but do not have their own authorization - this is because they only provide the technical solution to be able to make payments.

According to the police, only the overall picture of what is happening today at Swish is in the Swish-online system.

"Still unclear who is responsible"

After the review, it is also clear that the banks want to push the responsibility for their joint subsidiary Swish far, far away. When SVT tries to get a comment on how Swish's owners see the need for a payment service permit, some banks that today have the formal responsibility for Swish (Swedbank, Länsförsäkringar, and Nordea) refer to Getswish AB's management and board of directors.

GetSwish CEO Anna-Lena Wretman, for her part, states that they follow all the rules that apply to payment services. In a previous conversation, the CEO referred to the banks because Swish "has no customer data".

Continuation will follow. SVT's review reveals with the utmost clarity once again that it seems unclear who is actually the parent of the Swish payments and responsible for their control. And that in a reality where the swish deal has tripled while cash withdrawals have been halved.