Danish bank shares fall sharply

The Danske Bank share falls sharply Friday morning. At 10.04, the value has fallen by 10.06 percent after the stock exchange opened 09.00 this morning.

In total, shareholders have lost almost 40 percent this year when the whitewashing case in Estonia has taken the headlines.

The Financial Times writes Friday how Danske Bank's Estonian branch in 2013 transferred money for Russians without knowing where they eventually ended.

The newspaper has an internal document from the bank, where so-called "mirror trading" - also known as mirror trade - is described.

The transactions were such that Russian customers bought securities in rubles. Then they were sold in a foreign currency as dollars.

The method is legal but, according to authorities, is a red flag in relation to money laundering.

Danske Bank transferred up to 63 billion in a year through the type of trades.

The information on "mirror trading" gives new fuel to the case. Deutsche Bank has previously received a fair amount of fine to be involved in something similar, says Martin Munk, Corporate Adviser, from Jyske Bank to Ritzau Finans.

Deutsche Bank received a fine of four billion kroner last year in a case of money laundering from authorities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Russians had brought 64 billions of dollars out of the country using mirror trades.

Danske Bank said Thursday that the US Department of Justice is investigating the issue of money laundering in Estonia.

Employees in the Danske Bank's Estonian branch were aware that there was a risk of damaging the bank's reputation at mirror dealers.

"Nevertheless, it is a risk that we run in other parts of our foreign business, where the natural currency flow is always out of Russia.