Now the billion game for the banks is about keeping quiet

Kungsträdgården in Stockholm is a nice place.

When the cherry trees are in bloom, for example, pink fluff is pretty much everything you see when you look out the window, perhaps west from one of the bank palaces.

But in SEB, the bank management's job has been to turn its gaze in the other direction, to the east.

Which they obviously did not do.

Several of the major Swedish banks were tempted to move east in connection with the Baltic countries joining the EU in 2004. Unexploited markets usually mean high profit chances, and shareholders were not disappointed.

But lending grew so fast, and with such poor control, that in connection with the financial crisis it ended with a total disaster that not only affected the banks and the entire Baltic countries but even threatened the Swedish banking system.

Still, they continued to work with the principle of zero check.

When money poured in to the Baltic subsidiaries, they thanked and accepted - even in cases where there were clear warning signs that the bank accounts were used for money laundering.

The Swedish standard statement in retrospect, "We have been naive", was also heard from the replaced management in Swedbank after UG's revelation last year.

But when it comes to business, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the other side of this naivety often consists of billion-dollar profits.

So it is profitable to close your eyes, hard.

Not even the Financial Supervisory Authority understood as late as 2018 that money laundering is so harmful, not only for society but also for the banking system, that one needs to keep some control over it from the bank's head office even if it takes place on the other side of the Baltic Sea.

After Assignment review revelations last year, however, both Swedbank and SEB have received fines of billions.

SEB receives harsh criticism for not having had control from Stockholm, not even in cases where the subsidiaries in the Baltics have classified customers as high-risk customers.

However, the information in today's disclosure comes neither from Swedish banks nor the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority, but from the US Financial Police.

In the reports to the US Financial Police, which Assignment Review has read, the US banks have already reacted in 2017 to companies that are part of the huge money laundering system called "The Russian Laundromat".

So there are companies here that SEB has also helped with transactions.

It is in the United States that the really large fines can be imposed, for anything that in any way has to do with dollars.

And the demands on banks to detect and prevent money laundering have become enormously stricter.

This also applies to other actors who are in some way involved in companies used for money laundering.

In the audit last year, Uppdrag granskning found a company in Skåne that was linked to one of the money laundering suspected SEB customers.

There were inexplicable amounts, connections to Russia and owner companies in various tax havens.

I found even more strange transactions when I looked further into it, but could absolutely not prove real money laundering.

Nevertheless, a lawyer in Stockholm, who appeared as a service person, was warned by the Swedish Bar Association after the publication.

Banks have invested billions in monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions.

But too late, at least according to the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.

So now the billion-dollar game for the banks may be about silence rather than closing their eyes.

Possibly this is why Swedbank's former CEO so persistently denied money laundering problems, and possibly this is why SEB's current CEO denied red flags in the media and did not allow himself to be interviewed by Assignment Review.