CEO Of Danske’s Estonian Branch Mysteriously Disappears As Fraud Scandal Intensifies

Aivar Rehe, the former CEO of Danske Bank’s Estonian branch, has been missing since Monday, and police don’t have any information about where he might have gone.

Estonian police couldn’t identify the missing person by their full name to reporters after reports about a banking executive being arrested surfaced early Monday morning. But after Rehe’s siblings reached out, police confirmed that he is indeed the missing executive.

Rehe left his home in greater Tallinn at about 10 a.m. local time wearing a black jogging suit, police said.

Aivar Rehe

The kidnapping comes as Danske tries to untangle itself from a money laundering scandal, in which it alleged that billions of dollars in suspicious funds flowed from banks within the former Soviet Union into the West through the tiny Estonian branch.

As we noted last week, Denmark’s central bank cut its deposit rate to -0.75%, expecting Banks will pass this on to large customers.

Below is commentary from Denmark’s Jyske Bank as it Lowers Negative Rates on Deposits.

Jyske Bank said on Friday people with more than $111,100 in their bank accounts will be charged more for their deposits as it seeks to pass on some of the costs of recent rate cuts by the European and Danish central bank.

Jyske Bank, Denmark’s second-largest bank, said it would introduce a negative interest rate of 0.75% for all corporate deposits and for private clients depositing more than 750,000 Danish crowns ($111,100) from Dec 1.

Last week, Denmark’s central bank cut its key deposit rate to minus 0.75%, a record low among developed economies. “It is a lot of money and we have to pass on part of this bill to our customers,” he said. “I don’t hope that we will have to go lower but I don’t dare to promise it.”.

Denmark’s largest bank, Danske Bank has said it has no plans to introduce negative interest rates on deposits. Switzerland’s UBS has said it will impose a negative rate of 0.75% on clients who deposit more than 2 million Swiss francs ($2 million). ($1 = 6.7559 Danish crowns)

Of course, Danske is responsible for one-third of the Danes’ deposits. If the bank’s business were to be severely punished by the ECB or other regulators, it could jeopardize the safety of the Danske banking system.