The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway has published the fifth report from the joint regulatory sandboxes run with the Norwegian Data Protection Authority on data sharing to combat economic crime. The report, based on a project led by BN Bank and NMBU Tax Research, concludes that under current law banks cannot replace mandatory suspicious transaction reporting with customer guidance when handling smaller and medium-sized tax-related irregularities. That clarification meant the planned sandbox pilot could not go ahead, and the authorities’ role was limited to a guidance meeting rather than a full regulatory test. Dialogue with the Financial Intelligence Unit at Økokrim and the Norwegian Tax Administration also found no basis for alternative reporting thresholds or a general channel for banks to report serious tax matters directly to the tax authority outside the anti-money laundering route. The report says the main weakness is not lack of detection by banks but loss of information as cases move through the system, alongside wide variation in banks’ reporting thresholds and no legal basis to share relevant customer data with researchers for impact studies. Within current law it points to more standardised materiality assessments, better tagging and metadata in suspicious transaction reports, more targeted general customer information in high-risk situations, and quality measures that go beyond report volumes, while broader data sharing and research access would require legislative change.
Norwegian Finanstilsynet2026-05-21
Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway publishes sandbox report finding no legal basis to replace suspicious transaction reporting with customer guidance in tax cases
The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway and the Norwegian Data Protection Authority published the fifth report from their joint regulatory sandboxes on data sharing to combat economic crime, concluding that banks cannot replace mandatory suspicious transaction reporting with customer guidance for smaller and medium-sized tax-related irregularities, which prevented the planned sandbox pilot from proceeding. Dialogue with the Financial Intelligence Unit at Økokrim and the Norwegian Tax Administration found no basis for alternative reporting thresholds or a separate reporting channel for serious tax matters. The report recommends, within existing law, more standardised materiality assessments, improved tagging and metadata in suspicious transaction reports, more targeted customer information in high-risk situations, and quality measures beyond report volumes.