The Economic Impact on the Swedish banking sector by the Swedbank Money Laundering Scandal
2020 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 10 credits / 15 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
This thesis studied the impact that the Swedbank money laundering scandal of 2019 on the Swedish banking sector and Swedbank in particular. The study used the market model and an event study approach to calculate the abnormal and cumulative abnormal returns for each of the four major banks in Sweden with an event window of 20 days. In addition to this the study also examined the impact on both the financials of the companies and its reputation. From the study we were able to find significant negative abnormal returns due to the scandal for both SEB and Swedbank where Swedbank had a CAR of -19.89 ten days after the study. On the other hand, this study also showed that while the effect on the stock returns were significant for Swedbank and SEB there were no significant effects on the financial well-being or reputation of any bank except Swedbank. Further we conclude that regulators should increase the size of the fines for these types of cases as the benefit of not countering money laundering might well overweigh the costs of being caught.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 40
Keywords [en]
Event Study, Swedbank, Scandal, Abnormal Returns, Sentiment Analysis
National Category
Economics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-15530Local ID: EXF800OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-15530DiVA, id: diva2:1455254
Subject / course
Nationalekonomi
Educational program
Magister i finans
Supervisors
Examiners
2020-07-232020-07-232020-07-23Bibliographically approved