The Danske debacle - a case study in failure

After as much as €200 billion in largely suspicious transactions for non-resident customers were processed by the Estonia branch of Danske Bank between 2007 and 2015, there was always going to be a mighty reckoning, and so it came, in December [2022], with criminal and civil penalties in the United States and Denmark. Denis O'Connor studies a chronology of disastrous, protracted non-compliance.

Denis O'Connor, a Fellow of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment, was a member of the British Bankers' Association Money Laundering Committee from 2003-10 and a member of the Joint Money Laundering Steering Group's Board and Editorial Panel between 2010 and 2016. He has been a frequent speaker at industry conferences on financial crime issues, both in the UK and abroad.

After as much as €200 billion in largely suspicious transactions for non-resident customers were processed by the Estonia branch of Danske Bank between 2007 and 2015, there was always going to be a mighty reckoning, and so it came, in December [2022], with criminal and civil penalties in the United States and Denmark. Denis O'Connor studies a chronology of disastrous, protracted non-compliance.