Denmark has a policy for banks to inform their clients when they are being reported for potential suspicious transactions. Which I thought was surprising as you would never want to inform someone they are being reported for potential suspicious transactions or activities.
Such actions can lead to serious consequences, which some of the bank employees are currently facing. They are being threatened by their clients, this could lead to some very bad criminals going after families of such employees and putting them in danger all because the employee raised a concern for suspicious transaction and following set guidelines.
The proposal has been brought forth to keep it unknown to the clients of such reports. This will give a peace of mind to the employees and would allow compliance officers to do their job
diligently without client being aware of the investigation.
diligently without client being aware of the investigation.
The safety focus comes after the news of the death of the former head of Danske’s Estonian unit. Aivar Rehe, who had served as CEO of Danske Bank’s branch in Tallinn from 2006 to 2015, was found dead close to his home. The local media have suggested Rehe may have taken his own life. However, the police have not given a cause of death, which they say is out of consideration toward Rehe’s family.
“The government needs to do more to protect bank employees, who by law are required to report suspicious transactions,” the finance industry’s union said. Already last year, the union said it was aware of members being targeted and harassed by clients because of the transparency requirement.
In Denmark this has been a real big problem as Danske bank is going through one of the biggest money laundering case ever of over 200 billion euros.