It has been seven months since the last ceo Birgitte Bonnesen peremptorily declared that the bank had customers who laundered money in the baltic operations.
It has been over four months since the so-called Grimstadrapporten – that get in the management and the board seems to have bothered to read – pointed to serious shortcomings in the work against money laundering.
And it has as I said been two months since the Mission’s Audit disclosure.
on Thursday in connection with the interim report, came the clearest acknowledgement so far. The bank’s new ceo Anders Karlsson admitted that the bank’s own inquiries pointed to the fact that there have been serious shortcomings.
The lost months will be the bank extra expensive – especially if Ekobrottsmyndighetens investigation shows that it was aware of the shortcomings in the bank at an early stage, but the then management mörkat them. One of the shortcomings Karlsson pointed out was that the bank did not warning authorities about suspicious transactions.
It should be said, however, clear that it was a world of difference between Thursday’s press conference and the conferences that Swedbank has held since the discovery in February. It was a much more humble manager of a bank who met the press and which, moreover, explained step by step what he, the management and the board to do.
aside troublesome and precious revelations, once all investigations are complete.
But to restore a broken trust means that you admit the wrong and then tell what you intend to do about it. In this way, one can say that Anders Karlsson has taken the first steps on the road.
to only work with the investigations into what happened will cost over a half billion crowns. It is just the beginning. The scandal will also, likely, lead to mångmiljardböter that different states will require.
But also the customers risk to be able to pay for the consequences. To news agency TT Karlsson said that the bank pays a higher risk premium than its competitors when it borrows money on the financial markets. There are no problems at the moment, but in the long term, it may mean that customers will also get more expensive services.