Swedbank has been hit with an 850 million Swedish Krona ($82 million) fine by Sweden’s banking regulator following an error which surfaced after a change in a “system-critical” IT system last year.

In a statement, Sweden's regulator the Finansinspektionen (FSA) criticised the bank for a “lack of internal control”.

The system fault caused almost a million customers to receive incorrect balances on their accounts, where it appeared as if funds were missing, due to a large volume of transactions being stopped in the systems.

In its investigation into the incident, which occurred last year, the FSA found that the change made in Swedbank’s IT system did not follow its procedures for how such changes should be made.

Susanna Grufman, acting director general at the FSA, said the error was a result of the bank “deviating from its own routines”.

“Close to a million customers received incorrect balances on their accounts and many were also unable to make payments,” she said. “What happened shows that there can be serious consequences when routines are abandoned and internal control is not maintained.”

In its assessment, the FSA said that the sanction would not endanger the bank's current operations or its customers, noting that the bank is well capitalised, shows profitability and has a good liquidity coverage ratio.

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