Nordea settles for $35M in US laundering case

Nordea Bank has agreed to a $35 million settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services over its anti-money laundering program from 2008-2019. The cost will be included in Nordea’s Q3 report without significantly impacting its financial status. The investigation focused on the bank’s former operations in the Baltics and its Vesterport International Branch. Nordea understands that this settlement concludes the DFS investigation and is unaware of other US probes into their financial crime prevention. Nordea, which has invested about €1.5 billion in risk and compliance since 2015, now employs over 3,400 staff in anti-money laundering efforts. Meanwhile, in Denmark, Nordea is charged with insufficient scrutiny of Russian clients’ transactions and ignoring alerts about Copenhagen money exchange transfers, relating to over 26 billion kroner in transactions.