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FINANCE

DNB bank refunds savers for bad deals

Norway's biggest bank DNB said Wednesday it would compensate hundreds or even thousands of savers after the Supreme Court ruled it misinformed its customers about some of its products.

DNB bank refunds savers for bad deals
Rune Bjerke, CEO of DNB at a conference in 2009. Photo: kjetil_r/Flickr

The move could cost the bank several hundreds of millions of kroner (tens of millions of euros or dollars), at a time when the bank is striving to increase its core capital and has announced cuts across the board.

"We are now going to clean things up and follow the instructions outlined in the ruling," DNB chief executive Rune Bjerke said in a statement.

On March 22nd, Norway's Supreme Court ordered DNB to reimburse 230,000 kroner ($40,000), plus interest and court costs, to a plaintiff who accused the bank of losing his investment of that amount some 10 years ago by selling him products described as "guaranteed".

But the information the bank provided him was partially incorrect.

The case was seen as a test run for thousands of similar cases.

The Norwegian Financial Services Complaints Board has asked DNB and other financial institutions to re-examine each individual complaint in light of the Supreme Court ruling.

On Wednesday, Bjerke said DNB would immediately compensate around 300 people who had invested in similar products and who had also reported their cases to the Complaints Board. That was expected to cost the bank around 60 million kroner.

DNB said it would also try to track down savers who bought the products but did not report their losses to the Complaints Board. They could number in the thousands.

"It'll come down to several hundred millions of kroner," a bank spokesman, Thomas Midteide, told business daily Dagens Naeringsliv.

DNB's share price was down by 0.40 percent in mid-afternoon trading on the Oslo stock exchange in a market up by 0.44 percent.

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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.

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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