Danske Bank was behind large share of Estonian cross-border payments in 2008-2015 - central bank

Danske Bank was behind large share of Estonian cross-border payments in 2008-2015 - central bank
FILE PHOTO: General view of the Danske Bank building in Copenhagen, Denmark, September 27, 2018. REUTERS/Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen/File Photo Copyright Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen(Reuters)
Copyright Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen(Reuters)
By Reuters
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COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danske Bank <DANSKE.CO>, which is involved in a 200 billion euro ($230 billion) money laundering scandal in Estonia, processed a large share of the country's cross-border payments between 2008 and 2015, its central bank said on Monday.

Estonia has been rocked by revelations that banks there laundered money from Russia, Moldova and Azerbaijan via non-resident bank accounts.

Media reports this month suggested that the scale of the money laundering through the small Baltic country may have been larger then previously thought.

"Statistics show clearly that a large share of total cross-border payments was processed by Danske Bank," the Estonian central bank said in a statement.

The central bank said earlier this month that banks doing business in Estonia handled cross-border transactions of more than $1 trillion in and out of the country between 2008 and 2017.

At the peak in 2013, Danske Bank processed 29.8 billion euros of payments going out of the country, giving it a market share by volume of 41.3 percent, the central bank said.

($1 = 0.8712 euros)

(Reporting by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Adrian Croft and Susan Fenton)

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