HELSINKI: Nordea International Private Banking in Luxembourg has allegedly provided tax haven facilities to its customers. The extensive ways offering tax havens to customers to hide wealth were revealed by in some leaked information obtained from a Panama-based firm.
Nordea bank on Monday regretted that it did have procedures earlier to ensure clients pay the necessary taxes. The bank emphasised that it does not facilitate tax schemes for its customers regarded as tax evasion.
“Compliance is the bank’s absolute top priority. Our tax advice policy and ethical standard are clear: we do not encourage or facilitate tax schemes of our customers that are regarded as tax evasion. We help our customers to pay the tax they should by reporting to the authorities.” “However, we regret that we didn’t have these procedures already in place earlier,” said
Nordea Group CEO Casper von Koskull in a statement. Nordea Communications Manager in the country Anni Hiekkanen said the company does not approve of the clients who are not transparent. “We do not accept clients whose activities are not transparent from the perspective of the tax authorities,” said Hiekkanen.
Nordea stated that from January 1, 2016 new rules related to offshore structures were put in place, and that relevant information will automatically be submitted to all relevant authorities.
According to the bank, Nordea International Private Banking in Luxembourg back in 2009 took proactive measures beyond the requirements to secure all customers’ holdings and incomes on their accounts were reported to the tax authorities. Furthermore, Nordea said it will once again review all such structures to ensure that activities related to offshore structures in Luxemburg are fully compliant to its policies.
Nordea intends to go through procedures related to offshore structures to ensure that it meets all the requirements. “We will go through all these procedures,” said Hiekkanen. According to the national broadcaster Yle’s investigative programme MOT, Nordea’s Luxembourg unit set up offshore tax havens in Panama and the British Virgin Islands in 2004-2014. Despite warnings issued by the Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority, Nordea had been active in tax havens.
Thorben Sander, the head of Nordea Private Banking in Luxembourg admitted to MOT, saying that before 2009 Nordea did not check whether its clients were using the bank for tax evasion.
