SWEDEN Trends and Developments Contributed by: Richard Engblom, Per Josephson, Anna Cumzelius and Amin Bell, Harvest Advokatbyrå
Court rulings The banks appealed the SFSA’s decisions to the Administrative Court, which in both cases determined that the banks’ procedures at the time were based on extensive verified informa - tion regarding their customers’ financial situa - tion. Also, the Administrative Court stated that the actual outcome of a lender’s credit check is also relevant for assessing whether the col - lected information is sufficient or not. As a result, the court concluded that the SFSA’s decisions to issue remarks together with administrative fines were not justified and should therefore be annulled. The SFSA appealed the Administrative Court’s rulings in the cases to the Administra - tive Court of Appeal. The Administrative Court of Appeal granted the SFSA’s appeals of the Administrative Court’s rulings and established the SFSA’s decisions against Resurs Bank AB and Svea Bank AB. The banks have appealed the rulings to the Supreme Administrative Court. The new Consumer Credit Directive The Swedish government is aiming to publish its plans to implement the newly adopted and revised Consumer Credit Directive in October 2024. The new directive has a broader scope, further marketing, information and credit assess - ment requirements, as well as rules on credit advisory services and staff proficiency. Conclusion The cases against Resurs Bank AB and Svea Bank AB, and the rulings in the various instanc - es, demonstrate that it is still not clear what information lenders need to obtain and assess before approving a credit according to the Con - sumer Credit Act. To this date, it remains to be seen whether the Supreme Administrative Court allows leave to appeal in the rulings. However, the size of the administrative fines from the SFSA shows that the SFSA is serious about its con -
sumer protection agenda. Moreover, the SFSA has announced that it will continue to review, for example, the credit assessments of consumer credit institutions, with a particular focus on consumer credit institutions that largely provide high-cost credit since such credit often leads to payment problems. Furthermore, the SFSA has, during 2024, initiated investigations of several financial institutions to examine how the institu - tions assessed consumers’ ability to repay their loans. There is thus a high level of activity from many different actors, not least the SFSA, to The SFSA has continued to be very active with supervisory activities regarding AML/CFT. In recent years, the SFSA has initiated several investigations into the AML/CFT routines and processes at financial institutions to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. Sev - eral of these investigations are still ongoing and concern banks as well as Swedish branches of banks that are licensed in other countries within the EEA. curb over-indebtedness in Sweden. Supervisory Activities on AML/CFT Compliance Background A couple of recent sanction decisions made by the SFSA will now be looked at more closely. Decision regarding Aros Kapital AB (credit market company) monitoring and the use of risk models In December 2023, the SFSA issued a warning and imposed a SEK45 million (approximately EUR4.1 million) administrative fine on the Swed - ish credit market company Aros Kapital AB. The decision concerned the company’s compliance in several areas, including AML/CFT, where the SFSA focused on the company’s general risk assessment, risk assessment of customers, rou -
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