Klarna must pay half a billion after money laundering

Published 11 December 2024 at 09.15

Economy. Klarna has been awarded a sanction fee of a whopping SEK 500 million by the Financial Supervisory Authority (FI). The authority believes that the company has violated several key rules in money laundering legislation, including requirements for risk assessment and customer awareness.

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– Our investigation shows that Klarna has not followed the requirements for, among other things, general risk assessment and routines and guidelines for customer awareness measures. It is therefore justified to intervene against the bank, says Daniel Barr, Director General of FI, in a statement.

FI's review covered the period April 2021 to March 2022 and the investigation shows that Klarna has violated several central rules. According to FI, the company's general risk assessment has had “significant flaws”, for example it has completely lacked assessments of how the bank's products and services can be used for money laundering or terrorist financing. In addition, Klarna has lacked routines and guidelines that capture all situations when customer awareness measures must be taken, in the case of customers who use the invoice product.

– The money laundering rules must be followed. It is important to counteract the risk that the company's operations can be exploited by criminals, says Daniel Barr.

Despite the shortcomings, the authority does not consider the violations to be so serious as to justify a warning or revoked permit. Klarna instead receives a reprimand – and a record fine of half a billion kroner.

Klarna itself describes the regulations as complex and highlights that similar criticism has been directed at other banks.

“The industry navigates a complex regulatory framework, which is also demonstrated by the fact that all other major banks have received reprimands within the framework of the money laundering regulatory framework,” Klarna writes in a statement on its website.