Nordea Bank to pay $35M to resolve NYDFS probe into AML shortcomings
By
Aaron Nicodemus2024-08-28T17:41:00
Finland-based Nordea Bank will pay $35 million to resolve an investigation by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) into “significant compliance failures” in its anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act program.
Nordea was discovered to be facilitating the creation of off-shore tax havens in the 2016 Panama Papers investigation. A subsequent NYDFS investigation found Nordea was engaging in high-risk transactions through its international bank branch in Denmark, the NYDFS said Tuesday in a press release. Nordea also formed relationships with high-risk correspondent banking partners without conducting adequate due diligence on them, the NYDFS said.
Among those correspondent banking relationships were with Danske Bank, Latvian-based ABLV Bank, and the Bank of Cyprus, according to the order. Danske bank had its own huge money laundering scandal within its Baltic operations, for which it was fined $2.2 billion. ABLV and the Bank of Cyprus had known AML deficiencies, the order said.