In recent years, following a series of lapses, the Danish bank has been working to improve compliance controls and measures to combat financial crime.

Danske Bank has appointed Philippe Vollot as group chief administrative officer to take overall responsibility for compliance and the first line financial crime prevention and financial crime risk divisions. 

The Copenhagen-based bank said in a statement yesterday that Philippe Vollot will still be a member of the executive leadership team. Vollot has been building Danske’s compliance organisation by hiring the necessary expertise and developing a solid organisational structure together with a comprehensive financial crime plan. The bank has instigated reforms following damaging lapses in anti-money laundering controls in recent years.

"Philippe has been instrumental in bringing to maturity our regulatory compliance, financial crime compliance and regulatory affairs divisions. We now want to further increase both the quality of and the speed in which we combat financial crime and, in light of his significant international experience, Philippe is extremely qualified to ensure this progress across the bank, while at the same time ensuring better and smoother customer journeys in relation to our financial crime prevention efforts," CEO Carsten Egeriis said.

The bank wants to use automation and digital tech to help crack down on financial crime. As part of a simpler structure, it said that all responsibilities for putting its financial crime control regime will sit with one member of the executive leadership team. Vollot will have the “end-to-end ownership of our fight against financial crime across both the first and second lines of defence,” Danske said.

"We have been undertaking a large and complex enhancement to our financial crimes controls and we have made significant progress in recent years. The execution of the continued improvements of our financial crime defences is increasingly moving into our first line, which is why we are now taking this step. My focus will be to ensure more efficient processes that both strengthen the effectiveness of our fight against financial crime as well as support even better customer experiences," Vollot said.

Yesterday, deputy chief compliance officer and head of financial crime compliance. Satnam Lehal, was appointed chief compliance officer. Lehal will continue to report to Vollot with an independent reporting line to the board of directors, as was the case for the previous CCO.

The past decade has been a troubled one for the group. Danske replaced its chief executive and made a number of other changes in the wake of a money laundering saga centred on the Baltic state of Estonia. The affair snowballed into a broader European money-laundering episode, raising calls for tougher AML controls across the European Union.