Spelinspektionen, the Swedish gambling regulator, has recently announced that it is stepping up the efforts to combat money laundering. The regulator will be doing this with the assistance of a brand-new system that will monitor and reports suspected cases of money laundering as well as terrorist financing related to the country’s regulated gambling industry.
Known as goAML, the new system is set to replace the DAR system which gave the gaming companies licensed to operate in Sweden the ability to report on any suspicious financial activities. While this DAR system was certainly quite robust, it had a few shortcomings and these are some of the things that the new goAML system intends to address.
licensed to operate in Sweden the ability to report on any suspicious financial activities. While this DAR system was certainly quite robust, it had a few shortcomings and these are some of the things that the new goAML system intends to address.
Why Improvements Are Needed
In general, the new system is intended to significantly improve the quality of reporting to the country’s Financial Police who are mandated to deal with such issues. The Swedish gambling regulator has been hot on the heels of a number of licensed operators for failures related to anti-money laundering controls.
On January 1, 2019, Sweden’s new gambling laws took effect and a number of international gaming operators were able to gain access to the gaming market. This marked the dawn of a new gambling regime that seeks to make the local gambling industry profitable and also safer for everyone.
Tighter regulatory measures have already been implemented with the latest one being a decree by the gambling regulator requiring the country’s online payment service providers to refrain from processing payments involving unlicensed gambling regulators. The goal of this is to reduce the possibility that illegal financial activity could be hidden behind online gambling transactions.
Timeline for goAML’s Roll Out
According to Spelinspektionen’s statement, the new goAML system is set to starts its operations before the end of the year. The operators that have been licensed to operate in the country will start registering with goAML on December 9, 2019. This process is expected to take no more than two business days but to go through the process, the registered operators will have to be approved by the Swedish Financial Police.
Once registered, the operators that will have been approved will be given the green light to submit reports through the new system. This will be in effect from January 13, 2020. In the meantime, the gambling operators will still be allowed to submit reports using the outgoing DAR system, that is, until it is eventually completely closed down on March 1, 2020. During that period, the two systems will work interchangeably which means that the operators can use any of the two to make their reports. Making a report on one system will mean that they will not need to make a report on the other.
