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An interesting thing to note for those that care: Danske Bank has acquired several banks over time, and integrated them into the brand. The Estonian branch is

An interesting thing to note for those that care: Danske Bank has acquired several banks over time, and integrated them into the brand. The Estonian branch is such an acquired bank. After being acquired, the normal procedure for Danske Bank would be to move the newly acquired bank completely over to Danske Bank's banking platform. This platform includes all the Danske Bank business logic and procedures, such as money laundry checks as per EU regulations. However, in this specific case, it was deemed too expensive, and the new branch was left as is, running its own banking system separate from the rest of Danske Bank. Someone responsible for that decision, which effectively left that new branch to its own devices, is probably having a bit of a bad taste in their mouth right about now.

baq 8y ago
> Someone responsible for that decision, which effectively left that new branch to its own devices, is probably having a bit of a bad taste in their mouth right about now. or not. we're talking about laundering Putin's money. it's not inconcievable that this decision was at least indirectly influenced by the Kremlin.
- arghwhat 8y ago
  Having had a connection to the industry at the time, I'm quite sure that the decision was made simply as a money/frustration saver. Banking systems are the worst pile of horse-dung in existence, and no one wants to touch it if they can avoid it. It's expensive and cumbersome, and the leadership will go through great lengths to not wake the sleeping monster and risk having the card house collapse. So, I am fairly confident when my blame-o-meter is reads "incompetence" rather than "malice".
talltimtom 8y ago
> Someone responsible for that decision, which effectively left that new branch to its own devices, is probably having a bit of a bad taste in their mouth right about now. Why? Their reasoning then was that it would cost them to much to transfer the bank, “discover” the laundering and paying fines, instead they left it so they could earn more money by the time it was eventually “discovered”. These aren’t kindergartners running these banks and systems, they knew what was going on. They likely did make the right choice, the fines will be the same since now as they would have been then, and now they have a large profit to pay them from.
- arghwhat 8y ago
  This explanation is a bit too far fetched. The effort to move the bank to their own banking system is on itself a tremendous effort. We're talking calendar years of implementation time, huge risks and a stall of most other development. The leadership knows that their banking systems are a pile of bleeding horse dung that they wish to avoid touching at any cost. They are not kindergartners, but they are not omnipotent either. Knowing that the Estonian bank had improper processes would by itself require a lot of work to discover, and figuring out if this has been abused would likely be quite a massive task. Doing the move to the new business logic would reveal the issue, but not before it was done. Never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by incompetence. What we see here can be explained with just a little bit of incompetence, or an extreme amount of malice. The former is far more likely.
makomk 8y ago
On the other hand, as TSB recently demonstrated, moving acquisitions over to the parent bank's platform isn't exactly risk-free itself.
martin_bech 8y ago
Ill bet it was done intentionally.. some years 10% of Danske Banks total profits, was from this one branch.. They where warned multiple times, that the clientele of that branch, was shady. This was an Estonian Branch, with primarily non estonian customers.
- arghwhat 8y ago
  If I recall a talk with a Danske Bank employee correctly, only the Estonian branch itself saw the profits for this fraud, with the Danish branch not benefiting from it. However, my memory and interpretation of this chat may be incorrect. Economists and engineers do have a slight linguistic mismatch.

baq 8y ago

> Someone responsible for that decision, which effectively left that new branch to its own devices, is probably having a bit of a bad taste in their mouth right about now. or not. we're talking about laundering Putin's money. it's not inconcievable that this decision was at least indirectly influenced by the Kremlin.

arghwhat 8y ago
Having had a connection to the industry at the time, I'm quite sure that the decision was made simply as a money/frustration saver. Banking systems are the worst pile of horse-dung in existence, and no one wants to touch it if they can avoid it. It's expensive and cumbersome, and the leadership will go through great lengths to not wake the sleeping monster and risk having the card house collapse. So, I am fairly confident when my blame-o-meter is reads "incompetence" rather than "malice".

talltimtom 8y ago

> Someone responsible for that decision, which effectively left that new branch to its own devices, is probably having a bit of a bad taste in their mouth right about now. Why? Their reasoning then was that it would cost them to much to transfer the bank, “discover” the laundering and paying fines, instead they left it so they could earn more money by the time it was eventually “discovered”. These aren’t kindergartners running these banks and systems, they knew what was going on. They likely did make the right choice, the fines will be the same since now as they would have been then, and now they have a large profit to pay them from.

arghwhat 8y ago
This explanation is a bit too far fetched. The effort to move the bank to their own banking system is on itself a tremendous effort. We're talking calendar years of implementation time, huge risks and a stall of most other development. The leadership knows that their banking systems are a pile of bleeding horse dung that they wish to avoid touching at any cost. They are not kindergartners, but they are not omnipotent either. Knowing that the Estonian bank had improper processes would by itself require a lot of work to discover, and figuring out if this has been abused would likely be quite a massive task. Doing the move to the new business logic would reveal the issue, but not before it was done. Never attribute to malice what can be sufficiently explained by incompetence. What we see here can be explained with just a little bit of incompetence, or an extreme amount of malice. The former is far more likely.

makomk 8y ago

On the other hand, as TSB recently demonstrated, moving acquisitions over to the parent bank's platform isn't exactly risk-free itself.

martin_bech 8y ago

Ill bet it was done intentionally.. some years 10% of Danske Banks total profits, was from this one branch.. They where warned multiple times, that the clientele of that branch, was shady. This was an Estonian Branch, with primarily non estonian customers.

arghwhat 8y ago
If I recall a talk with a Danske Bank employee correctly, only the Estonian branch itself saw the profits for this fraud, with the Danish branch not benefiting from it. However, my memory and interpretation of this chat may be incorrect. Economists and engineers do have a slight linguistic mismatch.