Danish regulator seeks further police investigation into Nordea Finans Danmark

Denmark’s fiscal watchdog has asked the National Unit for Serious Crime (NSK) to unfastened an further constabulary probe into Nordea Finans Danmark, pursuing an anti-money laundering inspection astatine the institution successful June 2023.

Nordea Finans Danmark is portion of Nordea Bank.

The referral stems from an inspection carried retired betwixt 7 and 9 June 2023 and relates to a imaginable breach of the Money Laundering Act.

The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority said, “the institution has not had capable cognition of the customers for a ample radical of customers”.

The authorization said that, for galore customers who received recognition cards, the institution had not adequately established wherefore the cards were requested oregon however they were expected to beryllium used.

It described this arsenic a systematic weakness and said notes successful lawsuit records were not capable to find the intent and intended quality of the relationship.

It besides said the institution had failed to transportation retired hazard assessments, including hazard classification, for a ample fig of customers.

In the authority’s view, this meant the institution had not examined whether peculiar factors could person raised the hazard linked to those relationships from a wealth laundering oregon violent financing standpoint.

The institution said that arsenic portion of the follow-up process, the authorization had enactment guardant a connection for an administrative good tied to 2 orders that had already been met.

Nordea Finans Danmark said it could not judge the connection because, successful its view, the authority’s mentation goes good beyond the law’s requirements, and the projected good is disproportionate to the administrative shortcomings identified.

At the time, Nordea Finans Danmark had astir 155,000 customers. Neither the institution nor the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority recovered immoderate suspicion of wealth laundering successful the 21,000 lawsuit cases covered by the constabulary report, according to the company.

Those cases chiefly progressive mean Danish consumers, including radical who had bought goods done instalment payments.

The authorization said Nordea Finans Danmark had failed to conscionable the AML Act’s requirements connected lawsuit owed diligence for the customers concerned, and that the breaches supply grounds for transgression liability nether conception 78 of the AML Act.

In a statement, Nordea Finans Danmark said it “fundamentally disagrees with the supervisory authority's assessment. Nordea Finans Danmark A/S had capable cognition of and had hazard assessed the customers, who were mean Danes and well-established companies. Therefore, the constabulary study is retired of proportion”.