By Supantha Mukherjee and Terje Solsvik
STOCKHOLM/OSLO (Reuters) -Sweden’s financial regulator fined Klarna Bank 500 million Swedish crowns ($46 million) on Wednesday for violating anti-money laundering rules.
It said a review of the buy now, pay later company for the year to March 2022 had found significant deficiencies, including a lack of assessment of how its services could be used for money laundering or terrorist financing.
Klarna is widely expected to go public next year and said last month it had filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.
Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority said the violations warranted a fine but were not serious enough to issue a formal warning or to withdraw its authorisation.
“We have concluded this investigation as of today,” Erik Blommé, Director of Money Laundry Supervision at the FSA, told Reuters.
“This is not an injunction so there is no specific timeframe … but we expect Klarna to remedy the deficiencies in an expedient manner.”
Klarna, which got its banking licence in 2017, said the regulator’s decision followed a routine review of its compliance with regulations and did not relate to actual cases of money laundering.
“We have maintained constructive dialogue throughout this process which is part of our commitment to a robust and secure financial environment,” a Klarna spokesperson said.
Another Swedish payments firm, Trustly, received a warning from the regulator in 2021, which led to the company pulling its $11 billion planned IPO.
($1 = 10.9682 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Supantha Mukherjee, editing by Louise Rasmussen and Christina Fincher)
