Banks, Estonia, Financial Services

"There is no direct link to the money laundering case in Estonia, but it is clear that it is generally very intense to work with compliance, and especially the past year in Danske Bank has been very intense," Jorgensen told FinansWatch.

"But for me and the bank, my decision is really quite undramatic," he told the Danish business news website.

A Danske Bank spokesman said management had been aware of Jorgensen's decision for some time and expected to announce his replacement before long.

The resignation of Jorgensen adds to the list of top managers exiting after Danske Bank admitted to flaws in anti money-laundering controls in Estonia.

Jorgensen, 43, will leave the bank in November, after being head of compliance since 2014.

Shares in Danske Bank have fallen nearly 25% over the last four months, as the money laundering scandal has unraveled.  

Danske Bank last September announced it has expanded its ongoing investigation into the customers and transactions of its Estonian branch from 2007 to 2015. The bank hired Jens Madsen, the former head of Denmark's intelligence agency and fraud squad, to help the bank in its effort to investigate a possible case of money laundering in the Estonian branch of the bank.

The bank in October 2017 was placed under investigation by the High Court of Paris in relation to suspicions of money laundering concerning transactions carried out by customers of Danske Bank Estonia from 2008 to 2011. According to the Danish daily Berlingske, the investigation launched by French authorities into the activities of the Estonian branch of Danske Bank is linked to the case of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

In April, the bank's head of Baltic business banking and the head of business banking both left their posts.

A report earlier this month said that Danske's Estonian operations may have been used to launder as much as seven billion euros, which is more than twice as much as initially believed.

Danske Bank at the end of April announced it is about to stop serving local business and private banking customers in the Baltic countries. The group said that the move was in line with their strategy to focus exclusively on supporting subsidiaries of Nordic customers and global corporates "with a significant Nordic footprint."