The Danish Financial Supervision Authority has published a statement about anti-money-laundering controls at Handelsbanken, a branch of Svenska Handelsbanken AB.

In March, the Danish FSA conducted a routine inspection (to do with "ongoing supervision") at the branch, which included the branch's AML risk assessment, policies, procedures and internal controls, as well as "customer knowledge procedures," known to most compliance officers as "due diligence."

The regulator has instructed the branch to adjust its money laundering policy so that it is based on the risk assessment that sets out the branch's overall AML strategic objectives and describes the risks that the branch wishes to take.

In addition, the DFSA has told the branch to ensure that it has adequate internal controls to cover risk management, knowledge management procedures, investigation, listing and reporting obligations, information retention, employee screening and internal control so that it can prevent and offset risks properly in the AML/TF area.

The regulator also told Compliance Matters: "The branch is instructed to ensure that, in all cases when establishing customer relationships and in changing customer relationships, it assesses whether it is relevant to obtain information about the purpose and intended nature of the customer relationship."