Swedbank rehabilitated

The Central Bank has returned to the Russian subsidiary of the Swedish Swedbank group the opportunity to operate fully . As noted in the official statement of the regulator, all restrictions introduced almost three months ago have been lifted as of August 31, and the bank can carry out operations in full. Market participants believe that Swedbank got off lightly, because the Central Bank saw in its actions violations of the law on money laundering, which for many Russian banks led to the revocation of licenses.

“We are very pleased with this decision and are ready to resume work in full. We have taken a number of measures prescribed to us by the Central Bank. Our long-term strategy remains unchanged and Russia continues to be a very important growth market for the Swedbank Group,” said Jan Lidén, President and Chairman of the Management Board of the Swedish group.

On June 6, after an inspection carried out in March and April, the Bank of Russia stopped part of Swedbank's operations for three months. The reason for the introduced restriction was cited by the Central Bank as a violation of federal law 115-FZ “On combating the legalization (laundering) of funds and the financing of terrorism,” as well as the regulations of the Central Bank. Some market participants then noted that it was the first time that the Central Bank had applied such harsh measures against a foreign bank. However, already at the end of June, Swedbank announced that it had found mutual understanding with the regulator and would be able to comply with all its instructions.

“All's well that ends well,” noted a member of the board of a large Russian bank. — I don’t think that this situation could have a negative impact on the attitude of clients towards Swedbank. The fact that the Central Bank punished him for violating the anti-money laundering law rather indicates a careless attitude towards the regulator’s instructions. Apparently, he was not very willing to disclose information about his clients, for which, in fact, Western banks are highly valued.” According to the banker, the Swedes escaped with a slight fright, because many domestic banks have already lost their licenses for such violations. “Svedbank could become a pioneer in this sense among the Russian subsidiaries of foreign banks,” the newspaper’s interlocutor sneers.

Since January, the Central Bank has already revoked the licenses of 29 credit institutions, most of them violated the law on money laundering. Yesterday, Iberus Bank, registered in 1995 and not part of the deposit insurance system, lost its license. According to the Central Bank, from January to August the number of banks in Russia with some kind of foreign participation increased by 35, to 188.

The Swedbank banking group serves 8.9 million private clients, more than half of them in the Baltics, and 579 thousand corporate clients. Swedbank operates primarily in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russia, Luxembourg, the USA, China and Japan. The Swedish group entered the Russian banking market in 2004, purchasing a Russian bank, which was renamed Hansabank in 2005, and Swedbank in May 2007.

At the end of the first half of the year, Swedbank's loan portfolio amounted to 29.7 billion rubles, and it took 79th place in terms of assets in the Interfax-100 ranking. The bank has three offices - in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

Nikolay KOCHELYAGIN