In the third and final part of our series on how banks wield their power by excluding individuals and companies from the financial system, we meet a whistleblower from the Swedish banking giant Nordea.

Samnytt can now reveal internal training documents from Nordea which describe how the bank works to identify and map out customers’ beliefs— and how such information can be used as grounds to shut them out.

The material includes guidelines for staff, one of which involves assessing whether a customer poses a risk of being a “right-wing extremist terrorist.” One indicator highlighted is whether the person subscribes to any of the country’s alternative media outlets.

– We’re supposed to react if someone has subscriptions to alternative media, which we then detect through membership fees and online behavior, such as if you’ve made Swish payments to alternative media, the source says, and continues:

– I’ve personally done that, so according to this training, does that mean I’m now a terror suspect for Swishing money to alternative media? I find that very remarkable in a so-called democracy, which we’re claimed to live in.

Here is part three of our bank exposé:

Samnytt has contacted Nordea to ask questions about the mapping of customers, but the major bank has chosen not to respond.

Previous Episodes

Have you missed the previous parts of our report on the banks’ power, where long-standing and well-behaved customers are suddenly shut out and rarely or never told the reason, instead given vague explanations?

In episode one, you meet businessman Michael Fridebäck, who last year suddenly discovered he’d been excluded from the banking system—without any warning.

Listen to his story here:

In episode two of our bank series, we interview a journalist who spoke to a source inside a bank, a person who has been banned 116 times, a former Samnytt journalist who was shut out while receiving cancer treatment, and a debt-free expatriate Swede who—after 50 years with the bank—was suddenly no longer welcome.

Are account closures being used as a political weapon? See part two here:

Read More

Samnytt’s CEO and Sweden Democrat politician Kent Ekeroth has engaged with this issue in several opinion pieces and has also tried to get the Sweden Democrats involved. If you would like to read these texts, they are linked below:

Ekeroth: “The banking system needs fundamental reform”

Ekeroth: “The money laundering law has become a weapon against the people”

Ekeroth to SD: Banks are gatekeeping who is allowed to participate in society – take back control

Ekeroth: “Good that SD will now pursue the fight to curb abuses of power by the banks”