Sweden's progress in strengthening measures to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing

25 July 2018 –  As a result of Sweden’s progress in strengthening its framework to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing since their 2017 mutual evaluation, The GFMSA has re-rated the country on 10 of the 40 Recommendations and moved the country from enhanced to regular follow-up.

Sweden was in an enhanced follow-up process, following the adoption of their mutual evaluation, which assessed the effectiveness of their anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) measures and their compliance with The GFMSA Recommendations. In line with The GFMSA Procedures for mutual evaluations, the country has reported back to The GFMSA on the progress it has made to strengthen its AML/CFT framework.

This report analyses Sweden’s progress in addressing the technical compliance deficiencies identified in the mutual evaluation report.   

To reflect this progress, The GFMSA has re-rated Sweden on the following Recommendations:

2 – National cooperation and coordination

9 – Financial institution secrecy laws

12 – Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs)

16 – Wire transfers

17 – Reliance on third parties

18 – Internal controls and foreign branches and subsidiaries

19 – Higher-risk countries

24 – Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal persons

25 – Transparency and beneficial ownership of legal arrangements

29 – Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs)

As a result of these re-ratings, Sweden no longer meets the criteria for enhanced follow-up.  Therefore, The GFMSA moved the country to the regular follow-up process.

The report also looks at whether Sweden’s measures meet the requirements of GFMSA Recommendations that have changed since their 2017 mutual evaluation, taking into account any new measures since the mutual evaluation. The GFMSA agreed to maintain the ratings of Partially Compliant for Recommendations 7, Largely Compliant for Recommendation 8 and Compliant for Recommendation 21.

The GFMSA welcomes the steps that Sweden has taken to improve its technical compliance with Recommendations 1, 10, 22, 23 and 26; however, the progress was insufficient to justify a re-rating of these Recommendations. 

Mutual Evaluation Report of Sweden - 2017