Trustly comments on the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority’s decision

Stockholm, Sweden, February 22, 2022 – The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority ("SFSA") has today published its decision in the supervisory case initiated in October 2020 regarding the anti-money laundering measures of Trustly Group AB, the European arm of Trustly (“Trustly Europe”) during the time period January to August 2020.

The SFSA has decided to issue Trustly Europe a warning in conjunction with a fine of SEK 130 million (approximately EUR 12 million). The SFSA furthermore instructs Trustly to start treating end users, i.e. consumers that use Trustly’s services, as customers.

As communicated in November 2021, Trustly Europe has already started to adapt its services to meet the SFSA's updated interpretation of who should be treated as a customer in Europe. This work is now being carried out in a comprehensive and timely manner.

Furthermore, Trustly Europe has already addressed or started to address the deficiencies previously identified by the SFSA that are not attributable to who is to be treated as a customer.

A key issue for the supervisory case has been Trustly Europe's previous interpretation of the regulatory framework that end users, i.e. consumers who pay with Trustly's service, should not be treated as customers of the company, but as customers of the merchants to whom the company's services are provided. The end users who pay with Trustly have already undergone the usual customer due diligence measures carried out by their respective banks.

Trustly has closely followed the development of the regulatory framework for the Fintech industry, which has undergone a rapid evolution in recent years, and has considered itself to have valid reason to believe that Trustly Europe’s previous interpretation has been legally correct and consistent with authorities' interpretations and expectations.

Johan Tjärnberg, CEO of Trustly, comments: "It is good that we now have clarity on the issue of who the SFSA believes we should treat as a customer. Trustly will always strive to fully comply with both the applicable regulatory framework and our own high standards, and takes the SFSA's decision very seriously. In November 2021, we started to adapt our services based on the preliminary assessment from the SFSA regarding the end-user issue. We also deeply value our relationships with merchants, banks and other stakeholders and will continue to engage in an active dialogue with several of them to further explain our undertaken and planned actions in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, and how we ensure that Trustly remains the most trusted and secure platform for digital account-to-account transactions. Our market-leading technology enables a better experience for the end customer, higher conversion and lower costs for the merchant, while ensuring our service does not contribute to increased consumer debt. Overall, we remain well positioned in a payment services market that is rapidly transforming towards real-time payments."

In parallel with the supervisory case, Trustly has strengthened the organisation in several respects that contribute to continued enhancements in the company’s procedures for risk management and compliance. Among other things, Trustly has established a new function in the area of anti-money laundering measures, AML Governance, continuously added resources to the risk and compliance functions, and enhanced the expertise in risk and compliance matters including by appointing Josefin Lindstrand as a board member and chair of the Group's Global Risk Committee, hiring Rob Thacker as Compliance and Risk Officer, and Johanna Vikström as Head of Compliance Europe.  Josefin Lindstrand has nearly 20 years of experience in the financial services sector and wide-ranging experience in advising companies on issues of risk management, sustainability and compliance. Rob Thacker has more than 30 years of experience from financial services and financial technology including, compliance, risk and operations experience from roles in UK, Europe, Asia and the US. Johanna Vikström has nearly ten years of compliance work experience in the financial services sector.  

About Trustly

Founded in 2008, Trustly is a global leader in Online Banking Payments. Our digital account-to-account platform redefines the speed, simplicity and security of payments, linking some of the world’s most prominent merchants with consumers directly from their online banking accounts. Trustly can handle the entire payment journey, setting us apart from the competition and enabling us to offer an attractive alternative to the traditional card networks at a lower cost. Today we serve 8,100 merchants, connecting them with 525 million consumers and 6,300 banks in over 30 countries; and in 2020 we processed over $21 billion in transaction volume in our global network.

We are a licensed Payment Institution under the second payment services directive (PSD2) and operate under the supervision of the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority in Europe. In the US, we are state regulated as required to serve our target markets. Read more at www.trustly.com.

For more information:

Meredith Popolo, Head of PR & Communications at Trustly

+46 (0)70-961 15 83, meredith.popolo@trustly.com