Norway Monitors Banks Due To Gambling Transaction Ban

Lotteritilsynet, the Norwegian lottery authority, will keep the country’s nine banks under supervision to make sure their obedience regarding the ban on “processing transactions” with operators that don’t own license.

Monitoring:

In compliance with the section 5 of the Norwegian Gambling Act: “National laws state banks in Norway cannot allow deposits into and withdrawals from sites without a licence.” Additionally, the Norwegian Lottery Authority didn’t say if said banks violated this ban, nor did it unveil their identity. But the regulatory body did verify it would set up “supervision of compliance“ for every of the 9 banks.

Lotteritilsynet has the authority to demand from banks to stop transactions to and from particular firms and accounts. Moreover, in the information sent to every bank, the regulator demanded details of the measures each bank has taken to block transactions with the sites of unlicensed operators. Beside this, the banks have to introduce all “internal processes“ used to comply with the prohibition. Speaking on this issue, Rannveig Gram Skår, lawyer of Lotteritilsynet, commented: “For a long time, we’ve focused on dialogue with Norwegian banks and financial institutions. For the first time, we have chosen to open a more thorough inspection of compliance. We know that the payment intermediary ban is an important tool to protect the Norwegian sole proprietorship model. The purpose of the model is to prevent gambling problems and other negative consequences of gambling.”

Banks were provided with 3 weeks deadline to provide an answer to the original requests from the regulator. In this regard, Gram Skår added: “We largely expect to see that the banks have effectively complied with our decisions.”

EGBA urges Norway to end online monopoly:

Norway is still one of the final countries in Europe that still has a state monopoly on online gambling. In this sense, Lottery Norsk Tipping covers sports wagering and online casino gaming and Norsk Rikstoto horse racing. Because of this, iGaming options are very restricted.

Knowing that, during last week, the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) called on Norway to finally brings an end to its nationwide online monopoly and move to a licensing model for online gambling. Commenting on this, the EGBA commented: “Norway should follow the example of other European markets such as neighboring Sweden and Finland and make the move to a licensing system.”

Also commenting on the issue, Maarten Haijer, EGBA secretary general, added: “This would help combat issues such as consumers gambling with unlicensed sites.”