Financial crime: Regulators find few lessons in Danske

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Financial crime: Regulators find few lessons in Danske

Huge fines, criminal investigations and public opprobrium are the consequences of big anti-money laundering failures at banks, but what about the regulators? The reluctance of fellow EU supervisors to criticize one of their own in Denmark has heightened doubts about Europe’s AML framework.

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Jesper Berg, director general of the Danish FSA



Those of us used to hearing bankers’ gripes about heavy-handed regulators would not expect the supervisor to downplay a money-laundering breach, particularly in a country such as Denmark. But that is the distinct tone of comments Euromoney heard in Copenhagen this summer, in conversations with Danske Bank and the Danish Financial Services Authority (FSA).

Danske’s new French-born chief compliance officer Philippe Vollot does not challenge Euromoney’s reference to non-resident flows through its Estonia branch between 2007 and 2015, at €200 billion, as the world’s biggest-ever money laundering case. Across town, by contrast, in the much less glamourous district where the FSA is based, director general Jesper Berg takes issue, unprompted, with that now common media characterization.




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