Danske Bank, Bank | Danske Bank spent eight months informing customers of fee errors for 15 years

At the beginning of December 2020, Danske Bank in Norway was informed from its head office in Copenhagen that the bank illegally withdrew high fees from its Norwegian customers, and has done so for 15 years.

After the Norwegian management found out about the error, it took seven months before the bank informed Finanstilsynet and the Tax Administration, in June 2021. It took eight months before the Norwegian customers were contacted, in July 2021, according to Dagens Næringsliv.

– In general, it is reprehensible that companies do not comply with laws and regulations that apply to the business. Finanstilsynet expects companies to inform about incidents of this nature as soon as they become aware of it themselves, writes Ann Viljugrein, director of banking and insurance supervision at Finanstilsynet, in an e-mail to DN.

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She further says that they take the matter seriously and that Finanstilsynet became aware of the case before the summer and that they now demand a thorough statement from the bank in a short time.

Finanstilsynet, which among other things has the task of controlling Norwegian banks to ensure that customers have confidence in the banks, is considering further follow-up of the case.

Stian Arnesen, Head of Communications at Danske Bank, tells the newspaper that the complexity of the case has grown as they have investigated it. This has meant that this has taken time, he explains.

– Since we always want to inform the mentioned government agencies and our customers with as accurate information as possible, this work took so long, Arnesen writes in an e-mail to the newspaper.

The error applies to up to 190,000 of the Norwegian customers the bank has had since 2006, writes DN. The bank does not want to answer what proportion of the customers are affected, but states that the bank has around 272,000 Norwegian retail customers today.

The up to 190,000 customers have been deducted for high amounts in fees and interest on fees, especially reminder fees.