The embattled Danish bank, beset by regulatory investigations and revelations about money laundering at its branch in Estonia, has earmarked 2 billion Danish crowns (€267.9 million) to support its anti-money-laundering effort.

Jesper Nielsen, the bank's interim chief executive officer, betrayed the fact that English was not his first language when he wrote on his organisation's website: "On the basis of learnings from the Estonia case and a general review of our efforts and ambitions within AML, we have decided to further improve our efforts over the next three years through earmarked investments of up to DKK 2 billion. The purpose is to improve the quality and the efficiency of our controls while also offering a better customer experience."

Admitting that "it is clear that we have failed to live up to our responsibility in this matter," he summarised the commercial damage that the case had done to his bank in the softest possible terms.

"2018 was a challenging year for Danske Bank. The serious and demanding issue concerning the closed-down portfolio of non-resident customers in Estonia triggered justified criticism from our stakeholders and led to a number of changes at management level. In coming years we will further strengthen our efforts within compliance and anti-money laundering activities to become best in class among our peers. From a financial point of view, the year was characterised by continued growth in the Nordic economies, and we saw good demand for loans, especially from commercial customers and within home finance. The financial markets saw significant uncertainty throughout the year, however. This affected net trading income, and combined with a rise in costs – related, among other things, to the Estonia case, the donation of 1.5 billion kroner, and our compliance activities – this meant that net profit for 2018 came out lower than estimated at the beginning of the year."

The Danske Bank Group, according to its recently released report and accounts, delivered a net profit for 2018 of 15 billion crowns or €2 billion, as against 20.9 billion crowns the year before. Operating expenses amounted to 25 billion crowns, an increase of 10% from the level of 2017. The increase was the result mainly of a "donation of the estimated gross income from the non-resident portfolio in Estonia from 2007 to 2015" of 1.5 billion crowns or €200.9 million, which was recognised in the third quarter of 2018. In addition, operating expenses were inflated by costs related to the Estonia investigations, costs for compliance, regulatory requirements and the combating of financial crime.

The annual report goes on to say: "In Non-core Baltics, all daily banking activities are being discontinued, and the sale of new products has ceased. The remaining customer accounts are being closed as the statutory notification to customers has been given. The process is well underway and will largely be completed during the first quarter of 2019." It defines 'non-core Baltics' as "personal and business customers in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia." Only 238 people worked in the bank's Estonian branch in 2018, as opposed to 317 the previous year.

The report also admits that the Estonia case has "impacted our image negatively, resulting in customer satisfaction challenges in Sweden." This is a sign, among many others, that the days of customers and stock markets not punishing banks for their money-laundering misdeeds have come to an end, perhaps because of the carefully orchestrated press coverage and propaganda surrounding the Panama and Paradise Papers and the repeated invocation of it by governments the world over.