Danske Bank may have to look into Estonia dirty money case again
Danske Bank said on Wednesday it may be required by authorities to conduct a further investigation into its former Estonian branch, possibly prolonging a money-laundering saga that has dogged Denmark’s biggest lender for years.
Danske is under investigation in several countries,
including the United States, over some 200 billion euros ($241 billion) of
suspicious transactions that passed through the bank’s tiny Estonian branch
between 2007 and 2015.
Late last year, the bank completed a year-long internal
investigation into its non-resident portfolio in the now shuttered Estonia
branch and handed it over to authorities.
But the lender said on Wednesday it could be required to
“undertake further internal investigation in 2021”.
“That definitely disappoints me,” Jyske Bank analyst Anders
Haulund Vollesen told Reuters.
“I had hoped that we would see a clarification on this, and
this prolongs the overhang in the stock for a while yet, so that’s a shame,”
Vollesen said.
Danske reported first-quarter profit above expectations on
higher fee and trading income, but kept its full-year forecast.
“Raising the guidance seems totally obvious, I had kind of
hoped they would start out with a slightly bigger bang,” Vollesen said, who
said the results were good despite lagging net interest income.
“We saw a positive income development across our business
and our cost measures continue to have an effect,” newly appointed Chief
Executive Carsten Egeriis said.
Egeriis took the helm earlier in April after former CEO
Chris Vogelzang, who was hired to clean up the bank following the Estonia case,
quit after being named a suspect in an investigation into alleged
money-laundering at his former bank ABN Amro.
“We are making progress with the execution of our 2023
ambitions as planned,” Egeriis said, referring to the bank’s strategy of
cutting costs, increasing profitability and becoming more efficient.
Operating expenses fell 2% in the quarter to 6.3 billion
Danish crowns ($1.02 billion), while net profit came in at 3.1 billion crowns,
above an average of 2.67 billion forecast by analysts in a Refinitiv poll.
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