Skandiabanken bank has been reported to the Swedish Ombudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO) for discriminating against Arabic sounding names.

When Ahmad Waizy from Lindome tried to complete an international payment transaction on Skandiabanken’s website, he was unable to complete the payment as the bank rejected his first name.

After ringing the bank, he was told that Skandiabanken’s online payments system has a bar against names that could be of Muslim origin. Over 4000 people have Ahmad as a first name in Sweden today.

Islam in Europe, 26 August 2008

But see also the same site for an interesting survey of Swedish attitudes towards Muslims, migrants and minority cultures which suggests that the majority population as a whole has become significantly more tolerant compared with a decade ago.