European Interest

A stronger financial watchdog for Denmark

FLICKR/ANNA CHIARA B./CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A view of Danske Bank building, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Denmark has announced plans to make the country’s financial regulator stronger to fight money laundering. The news comes amid a major scandal that has rocked Denmark’s largest bank, Danske Bank.

The scandal involves €200bn in payments through Danske’s Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015, many of which the bank said in a report last month it thinks are suspicious.

As reported by the Reuters news agency, the scandal has led the bank’s former chief executive Thomas Borgen to resign and almost halved Danske Bank share price since February.

“Obviously, supervision must be strengthened and conducted in a different way than it has been done in the period 2007-2015 when we can see that Europe’s largest money laundering case was not detected,” conservative minister Rasmus Jarlov said on Facebook early on October 25.

He said that a profound evaluation of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) had begun and that it would include inputs from the FSA itself as well as from other stakeholders.

“It is a great task, and it must be done thoroughly,” the minister said.

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