Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority tells consumer credit institutions to wind down or seek bank or credit market authorisation by 31 July 2026

The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (Finansinspektionen, FI) has begun writing to all licensed consumer credit institutions to ask them to promptly confirm whether they will close their consumer credit business or apply to become a bank or a credit market company, following tighter legal requirements that mean the consumer credit institution category will disappear. A law change effective from July 2025 limits the granting or intermediation of consumer credit to banks and credit market companies. Consumer credit institutions that already held a licence when the new requirements took effect may continue operating until 31 July 2026, or apply before then for authorisation as a bank or credit market company; applications must be submitted by 31 July 2026 and firms may continue operating until a final decision is made. FI said it will use the responses to plan its processing capacity and will closely supervise that firms that do not apply cease credit activities, noting that the number of consumer credit institutions has fallen from about 60 to about 50 since July 2025 and that two firms have already obtained authorisation as credit market companies; the law change also requires other entity types that provide consumer credit, such as payment institutions, mortgage credit institutions and electronic money institutions, to stop that part of their business from 31 July 2026.