Nordea was the first Swedish bank listed in the leak, which Finansinspektionen said Monday it would investigate. The Dagens Industri (DI) financial daily disclosed that SEB, Swedbank and Handelsbanken have since come to the attention of authorities.
"They are also mentioned in the document, and so it is natural to verify that," Finansinspektionen spokeswoman Victoria Ericsson told DI.
Ericsson did not elaborate on the scale or timeframe of the inspection, saying the work is in initial stages.
Up to 500 Swedish individuals and companies are mentioned in the papers, among them Nordea clients, according to national broadcasters that took part in the investigation.
On April 3, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily published materials it claimed came from the Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca. The 11.5 million leaked files were claimed to expose the alleged involvement of former and current world leaders, among others, in establishing offshore companies through the law firm.
Around 500 global banks or subsidiaries are implicated in creating shell companies through Mossack Fonseca.
Mossack Fonseca has refused to validate the information contained in the leaks and accused reporters of gaining unauthorized access to its proprietary documents. The Panamian company warned that using unlawfully-obtained data was a crime that it would not hesitate to punish by legal means.
