Swedbank must tell its shareholders and US authorities as soon as they receive information that they have suspected transactions that may be subject to US sanctions rules. Therefore, the bank has now orally had to declare for its own investigation that they probably violated US sanctions for the equivalent of $ 4.8 million during the period 2016–2019. Limitations have been made in view of the limitation period and that it should apply to transactions in dollars. We do not know at this stage how much the bank has been running in violation of US sanctions or suspected money laundering in addition to this in other years or in other currencies.

The money is largely about salary payments and costs to a ship with base and owner in Crimea. It is unclear how OFAC, the US Treasury Department's oversight of foreign assets that ensures compliance with US sanctions, responds to the information and whether they think they are worth investigating further.

The major investigation will be presented on March 23

The major investigation by the law firm Clifford Chance will not come until March 23. And before that, the Financial Supervisory Authority will meet on March 19 to decide on any sanctions against the bank.

Hopefully, the bank's customers and the Swedish public will then receive an answer to how bad the situation has been in the bank in terms of what customers they really had to deal with and what they did when they noticed that the customers wanted to wash money.

SVT's Assignment Review revealed that between 2007 and 2015 there were suspected transactions of SEK 40 billion. In an internal report from 2018, that figure doubled. It would be sensational if the own internal report was completely incorrect when it reached the bank in 2018 and that the suspected money laundering was significantly lower.

The question of responsibility

Hopefully Swedbank's report will also shed light on the issue of responsibility for the suspected money laundering. And if the bank should claim damages from its former CEO and Baltic bank manager Birgitte Bonnesen.

The value of bank shares has been pushed down in connection with the Corona epidemic and concern that the infection could also lead to corporate bankruptcies or affect the credit market. The stock exchange is certainly receiving the message with some relief as anything that does not pose a threat to a multi-billion fine bazooka from US authorities is a positive surprise in this situation for the bank.

Just cleaning up the money laundering country is estimated to cost Swedbank a total of SEK 2 billion for 2019 and 2020.

On the other hand, it is difficult to put a price tag on the stock exchange because of the sunken brand and customer flight.