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FINANCE

Swedish banks take a tumble

Shares in Swedish banks continued to fall on the Stockholm stock exchange on Tuesday amid fears of a deepening crisis in the US financial sector.

Published: 16 September 2008 18:30 CEST
Swedish banks take a tumble

Oil shares also plummeted as the OMXS index shed two percent of its value.

AIG, the world’s largest insurance company, went into freefall in early trading before leveling out on rumours of US government intervention.

The bad news from across the Atlantic was matched by a miserable day in all sectors on the Stockholm bourse.

By close of trading the OMS index had dropped two percent to 257.5 points.

Swedbank, with ties to the bankrupt Lehman Brothers investment bank, lost 7.9 percent of its value, dropping to 99 kronor.

Nordea (-2.8 percent), SEB bank (3.6 percent) and Handselsbanken (-2 percent) also saw their shares tumble, though not to the same extent.

Tanganyika Oils took a massive nosedive, plunging by 18.1 percent to 91.75 kronor. Shares in Lundin Petroleum closed the day at 47.1 percent, a drop of 9 percent.

FINANCE

German watchdog steps up monitoring of popular N26 online bank

Germany's financial watchdog on Wednesday ordered online bank N26 to step up "internal controls and safeguards" to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing, and said it was appointing a special representative to monitor progress.

Published: 12 May 2021 18:05 CEST
German watchdog steps up monitoring of popular N26 online bank
An N26 card. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Bafin’s announcement marks an escalation of previous warnings to the popular Berlin start-up, which has come under fire in the past for not properly verifying the identities of new customers.

“Bafin ordered N26 Bank GmbH to rectify deficiencies both in IT monitoring and in customer due diligence,” the regulator said in a statement.

N26 “is required to ensure that it has the adequate personnel, technical and organisational resources to comply with its obligations under anti-money laundering law,” it said.

A “special commissioner” would oversee the company’s efforts, Bafin added. Founded in 2013 and known for its transparent debit cards, digital bank N26 is one of Germany’s most high-profile financial technology or “fintech” firms and now has seven million customers in 25 countries.

Its rapid growth has rested in part on fast-track identity procedures for new customers.

READ ALSO: What is the digital German bank N26 that’s about to hit a million users?

In 2019, German business weekly WirtschaftsWoche said it had managed to open accounts using forged IDs.

N26 on Wednesday pledged to “work closely” with Bafin and the special representative.

It said it had already significantly increased measures to prevent money laundering in recent years, “but we recognise that more must be done in this area”.

The coronavirus crisis had contributed to a spike in fraudulent online transactions worldwide, N26 added, “increasing the demands placed on banks in the fight against crime”.

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