Reinventing Danske Bank

Danske Bank has been forced to close all operations in the Baltics and Russia in response to the largest ever money laundering scandal, which has prompted EU authorities to launch an investigation of Danish and Estonian regulators. More than $200 billion of suspicious money from Russia and other ex-Soviet states flowed through its tiny Estonian branch over a nine-year period. Danske Bank has said it is being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding another regulator to the list of authorities probing the bank over the Estonian money-laundering scandal (It is also being probed by authorities in the UK and France). Besides, the Danske Bank manager who was made interim chief executive after the money laundering scandal has been dismissed over a separate mis-selling scandal in a further embarrassing setback for the Danish lender. According to the Financial Times (June 25, 2019), 87.000 of the bank's customers who invested in a specific investment product had been overcharged fees in comparison with expected returns. Both cases had been damaging to public trust and Denmark's international reputation. At the same moment, I executed an extensive multi-year (2017-2019) research study on the corporate reputations of 38 European business banks (including Danske Bank). The results of 229 in-depth interviews with senior executives and senior managers of Fortune Global 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies were used to reveal the corporate reputation of Danske Bank. The interviewees were open and very helpful in sharing many Danske Bank-specific insights with me - and therefore with you. They were generous with their time and supportive of my odyssey. Winners in the coming years will be those banks that properly build and manage 'reputation equity'. It will take conviction, courage, and commitment on the part of the Danske Bank leadership group to make that happen. Reinventing Danske Bank offers a way out. Dr. Pieter Klaas Jagersma is an independent researcher, business professor, and supervisory board member at Rijk Zwaan and several family offices. He worked at McKinsey & Company earlier in his career and as the ABN Amro chair professor of international entrepreneurship at Nyenrode Business University.