The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway has published an inspection report following an on-site review of SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge’s compliance with the anti-money laundering framework. The supervisor concluded that, at the time of the inspection, the bank had serious shortcomings across core elements including risk assessments, procedures, customer due diligence, ongoing customer follow-up, internal control, training and electronic transaction monitoring. Key findings included resource pressure and key-person risk in the AML function, unclear role descriptions and escalation processes, and training arrangements that were not sufficient to ensure role-appropriate, documented coverage. Risk assessment work was assessed as insufficiently business-specific and not adequately supported by relevant external and internal information, with weak treatment of terrorist financing risk and material shortcomings in the associated risk matrix. The bank was also found to have gaps and outdated elements in written routines, long review intervals for ongoing follow-up (four to six years for standard risk and one to two years for enhanced risk) alongside a backlog of nearly 2,500 overdue customers, and weaknesses in transaction monitoring design and governance, including high thresholds for cash alerts and limited rules targeting terrorist financing or customer-specific behaviour. Sampling of customer measures identified significant information gaps, including 2,680 customers without documented identification and missing information on purpose and intended nature for around 20,000 customer relationships, reduced to 5,736 customers as of January 2026. The supervisor also flagged shortcomings in simplified and enhanced customer measures, treatment of alerts and investigation duties, the tipping-off prohibition, and the handling of correspondent banking arrangements. SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge reported extensive remediation since the inspection, and the authority expects the remaining work to be completed during 2026. The bank must provide semi-annual status updates within one month after each reporting cut-off, starting with a report as at 30 June 2026, and internal audit is to validate the implemented measures.
Norwegian Finanstilsynet 2026-03-23
Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway finds serious anti-money laundering compliance deficiencies at SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge and requires remediation reporting
The Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway has published an inspection report identifying serious deficiencies in SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge’s anti-money laundering framework, including weaknesses in risk assessment, customer due diligence, ongoing monitoring, internal control, training and transaction surveillance. The authority highlighted extensive gaps in customer information, outdated routines, long review intervals, and governance weaknesses, including in correspondent banking and terrorist financing risk. SpareBank 1 Nord-Norge has reported remediation, and the authority requires semi-annual progress reports and internal audit validation.