Solutions delayed for online banking

Bank customers in Norway have  been frustrated recently by a spate of technical trouble affecting online banking and the use of mini-banks and payment terminals. Log-in systems have caused problems, too, and now it looks like customers will need to wait another year before new solutions are available. Many customers logging in have experienced problems [...]

Supreme Court ruling encourages disillusioned savers

A Supreme Court ruling that handed a crushing defeat last week to Norway’s biggest bank, DNB, may set off a string of claims like the one finally won by dissatisfied DNB customer Ivar Petter Røeggen. He felt he’d been misled by the bank’s financial advisers, and the country’s highest court agreed. Røeggen’s complaint dated back [...]

‘Network error’ blocked banking

Bank customers all over Norway were left without electronic access to their accounts for several hours on Monday night, because of what the country’s largest bank, DNB, called a “serious network error” at its supplier of electronic banking services. A spokesman for Evry, which delivers electronic banking services for many of Norway’s major banks, confirmed [...]

Euro sinks to new low against krone

More bad economic news from Spain sent the value of the Euro to its lowest levels against the Norwegian krone for nearly 10 years on Monday. Industrial exporters in Norway are once again viewing their own strong Norwegian currency as a threat. One euro amounted to just NOK 7.36 on Monday, down from NOK 7.37 [...]

ATM and payment scams abound

Dozens of automated teller machines (ATMs) known as “minibanks” in Norway have been hit by various criminal scams again this summer, while several merchants have failed to recover payments made through allegedly fraudulent bank card terminals. They’re furious that the state’s bank payment system isn’t taking responsibility for their losses. Meanwhile, a growing number of [...]

Borrowers avoid interest rate hike

Norway’s central bank board has ignored some economists’ calls for a hike in interest rates. Just a day after even Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg worried that Norwegians have too much debt, the bank nonetheless kept interest rates low on Wednesday, at their last meeting before the summer holidays set in. It was no big surprise, [...]

Central bank cuts interest rates

UPDATED: The executive board of Norway’s central bank (Norges Bank) cut its key lending rate by a full half-point on Wednesday, because of concerns over effects of global financial turbulence and the euro crisis. The move brings the nation’s most important benchmark rate down to 1.75 percent, but bank customers can’t expect to see their [...]

Banks reluctant to cut dividends

Norway’s central banker and its finance minister have called on the country’s commercial banks to boost their own capital, to better meet financial turmoil. It remains unclear whether the call will be heeded, since the boss of Norway’s biggest bank, DNB, is non-committal about cutting dividends to retain funds. Øystein Olsen, chief of Norway’s central [...]

Bank boasts new image

Norway’s biggest bank, long known as Den norske Bank, has unveiled a new logo and now just goes by the initials DNB, in all capital letters. The new image gathers several acquired businesses under just one corporate identity. It also means that units of the former DnB NOR such as Postbanken and Vital Insurance have [...]

Central bank keeps rates steady

Norway’s central bank (Norges Bank) kept its key policy rate unchanged at 2.25 percent on Wednesday, in line with economists’ expectations. Central bank chief Øystein Olsen also confirmed the rate was unlikely to rise any time soon. “Based on Norges Bank’s current assessment, the key policy rates will be kept at the current level for [...]

Tougher home finance rules loom

The government and Norwegian Parliament look inclined to go along with proposed, tougher regulations on how banks can lend money to homebuyers. Equity requirements may be raised, despite objections by lenders and major housing associations. Norwegian financial authorities at the state regulatory agency Finanstilsynet think bank employees currently have too much freedom when approving home [...]

Nordea to cut staffing in Norway

Nordic bank Nordea has decided to cut staffing by as many as 2,000 employees by the end of next year, despite strong profits. Around 200 to 300 jobs in Norway will be affected. Nordea’s operations in Norway are rooted in the former bank called Kredittkassen, which was acquired and evolved into Nordea during the 1990s. [...]

Bank worker swindled 5.5 million

A former employee of Norwegian bank DnB NOR has confessed to gross embezzlement, fraud and falsification of documents that amounted to NOK 5.5 million (USD 991,458). The male employee from Trøndelag, northern Norway, gave himself up to the police in July last year and told officers that it was a ” big relief” to confess [...]

Key suspects reject Nordea fraud guilt

Several of the five suspects in the Nordea fraud case, one of the biggest such cases in Norwegian history, began answering questions in an Oslo court on Thursday. The suspects are charged with fraudulently obtaining NOK 89 million (USD 16.4 million) from the Nordea bank account of one of Norway’s richest women, Randi Nilsen, last [...]

Interest rates unchanged as stocks fall

The Norwegian central bank, Norges Bank, has decided to hold interest rates at 2.25 percent in light of continuing global economic uncertainty, despite having originally planned further rises this autumn. Interests rates were raised to 2.25 percent on 12 May and the bank’s plans had predicted further rises at the end of 2011. Meanwhile, the [...]

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