Mutual Evaluation of Sweden

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has completed an assessment of the implementation of its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing standards in Sweden.  Among its major findings were:

• Swedish legal structures in place to combat money laundering are generally sound; their level of effectiveness has yet to be fully tested.
• The terrorist financing offence is generally broad and effective.
• Customer identification requirements are in place for financial institutions; however, these measures could be further enhanced through a more comprehensive due diligence framework.
• The Swedish financial intelligence unit should be permitted to keep suspicious transaction report information for a longer period in order to increase its effectiveness.
• The supervisory regime regarding anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing measures could be enhanced for certain types of financial institutions (bureaux de change and money remittance services).
  This mutual evaluation was conducted using the FATF Recommendations as published in October 2004, and the 2004 Methodology for Assessing Compliance with the FATF 40 Recommendations and FATF 9 Special Recommendations.