Nordic Banks Join Forces To Combat Money Laundering

STOCKHOLM, July 5 (Reuters) - The Nordic region's six major banks announced the creation of a customer checking centre on Friday, with the initiative expected to help their efforts to crack down on money launderers and recover from a scandal that has damaged the sector's reputation.

The news confirms a Reuters report about the venture, which involves scandal-hit Danske Bank and Swedbank and their rivals Handelsbanken, Nordea , SEB and DNB.

The banks confirmed the KYC Utility would pool know your customer checks initially for their large and medium-sized Nordic-based companies and begin offering commercial services from next year.

Fighting money laundering has become a high profile issue for the region after Danske Bank and Swedbank became embroiled in a money laundering scandal involving their businesses in the Baltics, costing both billions in market value.

(Reporting by Esha Vaish in Stockholm Editing by Keith Weir)