Estonia Warns Banks’ Anti-Laundering Measures Stifle Business

Estonia’s finance minister urged the country’s biggest lenders to fine tune anti-money laundering measures as a clampdown following one of Europe’s largest dirty money scandals harms legitimate businesses.

“The expectation of the state to the banks is clear: business activities, transactions can’t suffer while you’re doing your due diligence in fighting money laundering,” Martin Helme said Wednesday after meeting financial institutions and supervisory bodies. “Differentiating between the good and bad, as well as training people and setting up alerts, must be smarter.”

As an example, Helme cited a decision last year by a U.S. company to abandon a “sizable” investment ...