Estonian Banks Collaborate Through Salv Bridge to Combat Financial Crimes

Estonia’s business community is leading the charge in the fight against financial crimes, harnessing the power of the Salv Bridge collaboration network. In this article, we discuss the groundbreaking crime-fighting platform, its successful pilot program, and its impact on combating fraud, anti-money laundering (AML), and sanctions violations.

Shadow Economy and Salv Bridge

Financial crimes, particularly money laundering, pose a significant challenge. Europol estimates that €2-4tn is laundered globally each year, with 70-80% of these funds flowing through legitimate banking structures. Only 2% of the ill-gotten gain is successfully intercepted by authorities. In this context, Sal Bridge, an innovative crime-fighting platform, is needed.

What is Salv Bridge?

Designed to connect data points across banks and fintechs, Salv Bridge transforms financial data into actionable insights. By enabling banks to exchange and enrich data on suspicious activities, Salv Bridge bolsters defenses against financial crimes, reduces operational costs, and drives efficiency. The network is encrypted and fully compliant with the latest data protection regulations.

Successful Estonian Pilot

A recent nine-month pilot in Estonia featured ten domestic banks representing 99% of the market. The banks launched over 1,400 collaborative investigations across three use cases: fraud, AML, and sanctions violations. These efforts are estimated to have prevented €3m in customers’ funds from reaching criminal-controlled accounts and thwarted various scams.

Salv Bridge: Fighting Fraud

Fraud is a significant issue, with Swedbank reporting at least 70 cases prevented by Salv Bridge. With quick responses enabling the freezing of funds and their return to their rightful owners, Salv Bridge plays a crucial role.

Salv Bridge: Combating AML and Sanctions Violations

For AML cases, Salv Bridge has significantly improved the quality of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by banks to Estonia’s FIU. Filling gaps more efficiently, Salv Bridge leads to more effective intelligence investigations and prosecutions.

Regarding sanctions violations, Salv Bridge has proven highly effective. With an increasing volume of sanctions alerts in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, banks see significant reductions in false positives. Additionally, Salv Bridge helps identify potential politically exposed persons (PEPs) or relatives & close associates (RCAs) of sanctioned individuals, mitigating the risk of fines and reputational damage.

Privacy and Data Protection in Salv Bridge

With the implementation of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Salv Bridge offers a clear legal basis for private-to-private financial crime intelligence sharing among EU member states and the United Kingdom. Adhering to data minimization practices and principles of necessity and proportionality ensures Salv Bridge’s compliance with relevant regulations.

Future Developments

The European Parliament has proposed the creation of a new authority dedicated to streamlining national legislation and supervisory practices, potentially enhancing information sharing across the EU as early as next year. This legislation marks a significant stride forward in cooperative crime-fighting within the EU.

Empowering the Future: Expanding Salv Bridge

Initially testing the feasibility of cross-European financial collaboration and crime-fighting for six to nine months, Salv Bridge has seen all ten Estonian banks extend their participation. Non-bank members, including fintechs, payment service providers (PSPs), and money service businesses (MSBs) from the Baltics and the United Kingdom, have already applied to join.

Interested organizations can join the waitlist to access the cross-European financial collaboration and investigation network.