Deutsche Bank faces US Fed Questions

Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday that it had received requests for information from regulators and law-enforcement agencies around the world that are investigating a money-laundering scheme involving Danske Bank.

The statement came in response to a Bloomberg report that said the US Federal Reserve was investigating Deutsche Bank’s role in the Danske scandal.

Deutsche Bank said in a statement that there were no probes,  “but we received several requests for information from regulators and law enforcement agencies around the world.” The bank also said it continues to provide information to and co-operate with the investigating agencies.

“It is not surprising at all that the investigating authorities and banks themselves have an interest in the Danske case and the lessons to be learned from it,” Deutsche Bank said.

The Fed’s probe is at an early stage, Bloomberg said, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The US Fed is investigating whether Deutsche Bank in New York properly monitored the transfer of funds it performed on behalf of Danske from its Estonia branch, the report added.

Deutsche CEO Christian Sewing said last week that the bank was investigating the Danske case internally and that it had no indications of any misconduct on the bank’s part.

Danske is under investigation for suspicious payments totaling €200bn from 2007 until 2015. Deutsche Bank has said that it acted as a correspondent bank for Dankse Bank in Estonia.

A Deutsche Bank executive director has said the German bank played only a secondary role as a correspondent bank to Danske Bank, limiting what it needed to know about the people behind the transactions.

In 2017, the Fed was among regulators that fined Deutsche Bank nearly $700m for weak controls that allowed money-laundering from Russia. A US department of justice investigation into the case is still ongoing.

In November, police searched the offices of all the members of Deutsche Bank’s board as part of a two-day raid and investigation into money-laundering allegations linked to the Panama Papers.

Deutsche Bank has said that it has no indications of misconduct in this case.

In September, German regulator BaFin ordered Deutsche Bank to do more to prevent money-laundering and appointed accounting firm KPMG as a third party to assess progress.

Deutsche shares were down 0.5% at 9.19am GMT, lagging Germany’s DAX 30 index which was off 0.25%.

• Reuters