Compliance Matters has spoken to the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority about its present drive to stop banks from being lazy and relaxing their 'know your customer' controls because of the turmoil caused by the Coronavirus. It is also asking financial firms to be vigilant for new types of suspicious activity.

In Denmark, according to DFSA director Stig Nielsen, the Government regards KYC ("know your customer") operatives as 'key workers.' Nielsen told Compliance Matters: "We have been in contact with many banks and they have reassured us that they have not eased their controls. We are trying to stop them from doing so. We are saying to them: please do not send home people who are doing KYC - either that or do something to help them do KYC at home. At the moment many are still going into the office.

"I also want banks to know that we are still in business as a supervisor. We are doing virtual inspections. Banks should not think that they're no longer under supervision because a lot of their people are working from home. The banks have told us that their financial activities have been reduced a lot, so that should make KYC easier."

The regulator's main AML preoccupation at the moment has nothing to do with HNW individuals; instead, it fears that businesses are defrauding the Government of crisis-aid and that banks might not be doing enough to detect the proceeds of such fraud going into their corporate customers' accounts. Nielsen did not know whether banks were among the 70,000 companies (but no individuals) in Denmark that had received government money to redeem some of their Corona-related extra costs.

When asked what the main money-laundering technqiues of Danes were, the director said: "One favourite way is to put black money in legitimate companies. Another way is to pay in cash. If you have large amounts of black money you have to put them into the real economy. If you only have 1,000 kroner, a bank would never detect that. You can put it into ATMs here and they would not realise. Of course, if you started to do that every week, then they would start wondering."

When asked for a tip to give AML departments at private banks during the Corona-crisis, Nielsen told Compliance Matters: "This is an unprecedented crisis. Money launderers are very original and innovative, so the important thing is to look out for the kind of transactions that you've never seen before."

On the subject of Henrik Ramlau-Hansen, the DFSA's chairman (2016-18) who became the subject of a police investigation last year, Nielsen said: "I knew him. By the time he was chairman he had retired a little bit. The case is still open and the police are still investigating."