The board of Sweden's oldest bank, which has suffered much opprobrium for its alleged part in the Danske Bank money laundering imbroglio, has asked CEO Birgitte Bonnesen to leave.

Bonnesen, 62, is not the first Nordic bank CEO to depart over allegations that a Baltic branch helped Russian oligarchs to launder potentially dirty money; Danske Bank's chief executive, Thomas Borgen, fell on his sword last September and was replaced by Jesper Nielsen, who is acting as CEO in a temporary capacity.

Signs of the current storm of unwelcome publicity, which Swedbank has handled with far less aplomb than Danske, were there years ago when the Financial and Capital Market Commission of Latvia fined Swedbank €1.36 million for bad AML controls that an inspection uncovered.