Amal Express shall pay an administrative fine

Amal Express Ekonomisk förening is a registered payment service provider pursuant to the Payment Services Act (2010:751). The association offers cross-border money remittances via informal remittance systems, so-called hawala, to Somalia, other countries in Eastern Africa and other locations. Cross-border transactions – in some cases for a significant value – have been executed through the hawala service, and to some extent these transactions have been paid in cash. The service has entailed a high risk of money laundering and terrorist financing, and Amal has thus been exposed to a high risk of being used for such purposes. Given this background, the association has been obligated to take particularly strong measures.

Finansinspektionen has investigated Amal's compliance with the anti-money laundering regulations and identified deficiencies in the company's general risk assessment, customer risk classification, and due diligence measures.

These relate to central provisions in the anti-money laundering regulations, and Finansinspektionen makes the assessment that there is cause to view these breaches seriously. This applies in particular given that Amal should have taken particularly strong measures to counteract the high risk of the payment system provided by the association being used for money laundering and terrorism financing. Amal has taken a number of measures to rectify the deficiencies Finansinspektionen identified. Finansinspektionen therefore makes the assessment that the expectation that Amal will be able to comply with the regulations going forward is sufficient to only issue an administrative fine of SEK 100,000.