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NORDEA

Nordea cost cutting boosts profit

Swedish bank Nordea said on Wednesday its net profit grew by 13 percent to $1.068 billion in the third quarter, driven mainly by a drive to cut costs.

Published: 23 October 2013 13:23 CEST
Nordea cost cutting boosts profit

The net profit increase did not live up to the expectations of analysts interviewed by Dow Jones Newswires, who reckoned with $1.093 billion earnings for this quarter, compared to the same period of 2012.

Revenues during the quarter remained practically unchanged at $3.336 billion, a one-percent rise from a year earlier.

“For income, we have a maintained focus on attracting new customers, improving cross-selling and adjusting pricing,” chief executive Christian Clausen said.

Cross-selling refers to the practice of selling new products to existing customers.

“We have conducted gross cost savings of around four percent since third quarter of 2012. This has been offsetting cost inflation, investments and regulatory costs,” Clausen said.

“Given our outlook of a low growth environment, further efficiency improvement continues to be high on the agenda.”

AFP/The Local/at

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NORDEA

Nordea’s Danish offices raided in money laundering probe

The Nordic region's largest bank Nordea said Monday that Danish prosecutors had raided its offices in Denmark as part of an investigation into money laundering.

Published: 18 June 2019 09:12 CEST
Nordea's Danish offices raided in money laundering probe
File photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix

The Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime seized physical and digital material — including emails — from the Copenhagen offices on June 12th, reported the Danish business newspaper Børsen, which first broke the story.

The bank confirmed the raid in a statement to AFP, saying it was carried out in relation to a probe into “compliance with anti-money laundering procedures” at its international branch, which was responsible for non-Nordic customers.

“We are fully cooperating with the prosecution service to ensure that they have access to all relevant information,” said Nordea's Danish head Frank Vang-Jensen.

The bank said that in 2014, when it was refocusing its activities on Nordic countries — and away from Baltic states — it evaluated its customers at the international branch and “exited the customers who didn't meet our criteria”.

The Danish Financial Supervisory Authority then lodged a money-laundering complaint against Nordea in 2016.

In October last year, Sweden's financial crime unit also received a complaint against Nordea, which moved its Swedish headquarters to Finland later that month for tax reasons.

Nordea has set aside 95 million euros to cover potential first-quarter costs related to the money laundering probes.

The investigation comes as Denmark's largest lender Danske Bank is the target of criminal probes in several countries over some 200 billion euros in transfers that passed through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015, involving some 15,000 foreign clients.

READ ALSO: Nordea reported to Denmark investigators over money laundering

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