Former Governor of the Central Bank of Cyprus, Panicos Demetriades, comments in The Economist in relation to the news that ING and Danske Bank have enabled money laundering within their institutions.
ING and Danske Bank are in the spotlight for their handling of dirty money
“A LINGERIE trader, a building-materials supplier and two fruit-and-vegetable importers are all accused of laundering hundreds of millions of euros through their accounts with ING, a big Dutch bank, between 2010 and 2015. Its accounts were also used by a telecoms company, VimpelCom (now VEON), to pay $55m in bribes in order to operate in Uzbekistan (the firm admitted the charges and reached a separate settlement with Dutch and American authorities in 2016)…
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Small countries with oversize banking sectors are thought to be particularly vulnerable. They may lack the cash—or zeal—for monitoring and investigation. Regulators may not be truly independent, says Panicos Demetriades, a former governor of the central bank of Cyprus. Where political ties to Russia are strong, for example, they may be pressed to look the other way…”
Read the full article, published in The Economist, 6 September 2018, here.