Estonia to remove Danske bank link from e-Tax Board
At the end of this month,he Estonian Tax and Customs Board (MTA) will terminate the availability of the the Danske Bank bank link in its e-Tax Board online portal.
"On 29 October, the MTA will terminate the agreement with Danske Bank on the use of the bank link service," MTA spokesperson Rainer Laurits told BNS.
The Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday that they will close their bank account with the Estonian branch of Danske Bank in connection with the decision of the bank to discontinue serving retail and corporate customers in the Baltic countries.
Danske Bank said in mid-August that it will focus exclusively on serving Nordic corporate clients in the Baltic countries in the future and will discontinue the provision of day-to-day baking services by the end of this year.
More than 1.5 trillion Danish kroner, or €201 billion moved through the Estonian branch of Danske Bank between 2007 and 2015, according to an outside law firm that carried out a probe for Denmark's largest lender.
Danske said that while it's impossible for now to say how much of the gigantic sum was dirty money, it could not rule out that a lot of the "suspicious transactions are criminal." Of the around 15,000 accounts under investigation — which Danske Bank closed in 2015 — 6,200 are considered suspicious and most of them have been brought to the attention of authorities.
The scandal related to potential money laundering at the bank's Estonian branch has taken a heavy toll on the bank's reputation, and Danske stock has lost over 40% of value since the start of the year.
The bank is also being investigated by the US authorities in connection with alleged money laundering.
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Editor: Aili Vahtla