Finnish bank to pay $35M for violating anti-money laundering law

Finland's Nordea bank has reached a final resolution with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) following an investigation related to the adequacy of Nordea’s anti-money laundering (AML) program during the period 2008 to 2019, Report informs referring to the bank's website.

Under the resolution with DFS, Nordea has agreed to accept a fine totaling $35 million (31.5 million euros). The amount payable to the US authority has no material impact on the financial position of Nordea, and the charge will be included as a cost in Nordea’s Q3 2024 results.

The historical investigations by DFS concerned Nordea’s former processes, policies and controls to prevent money laundering and the former compliance framework, including those of the closed Vesterport International Branch in Denmark and Nordea’s former operations in the Baltics.

Nordea accepts the terms of the resolution and has cooperated fully with DFS regarding this matter. Nordea understands this resolution concludes DFS’s investigation, and Nordea is not aware of any other pending or active investigation by US authorities related to such historical financial crime prevention matters.

Due to US restrictions regarding confidential supervisory information, Nordea has not been able to disclose details related to this investigation until now.

“Following a close ongoing dialogue and cooperation since 2019, we are pleased to conclude and close this matter with DFS. As previously acknowledged, historically we underestimated the complexity of preventing financial crime and the resources needed for that purpose. In recent years we have invested heavily in our AML program, and the fight against financial crime is a key priority for Nordea,” says Jamie Graham, Chief Compliance Officer, Nordea Group, and continues: “We do everything we can to prevent financial crime and the bank has taken significant measures to improve financial crime processes and procedures since the period covered by DFS’s investigation. We are pleased that these remediation efforts and our extensive cooperation were also recognized by DFS.”