BRUSSELS — The European Network of Financial Institutions announced Thursday the temporary suspension of three member banks from its cross-border clearing framework, citing what officials described only as "material discrepancies" in mandatory quarterly compliance filings submitted between September and December 2025.
The affected institutions—Kredietbank van Antwerpen, Banco Meridional de Lisboa, and Nordische Handelsbank of Hamburg—will be barred from participating in ENFIN's unified settlement system until an internal review concludes, according to a statement released at 18:42 CET. All three banks remain operational under domestic regulatory frameworks.
ENFIN Director of Compliance Margot Lindström confirmed the suspensions during a brief press availability but declined to elaborate on the specific nature of the irregularities. "This is a procedural measure to protect the integrity of our network's reporting architecture," Lindström said. "We anticipate the review will be completed within sixty days."
A senior ENFIN official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, offered a more specific account. "The timestamps simply don't align," the official said. "We're talking about filings that were logged before the reporting window officially opened. In some cases, days before."
Banks Reject Allegations
Representatives for all three institutions issued statements denying any improper conduct. Kredietbank van Antwerpen spokesperson Pieter de Vries called the suspension "premature and damaging," noting that the bank had "fully cooperated with all ENFIN data requests since restructuring our compliance department in March 2025."
Nordische Handelsbank's legal counsel, in a written statement, attributed the discrepancies to "known synchronization issues" with ENFIN's upgraded filing portal, which was deployed in August 2025 as part of post-crisis infrastructure modernization efforts. The portal replacement followed the network's absorption of several defunct national reporting systems during the emergency consolidation period.
The Global Policy Integrity Forum, an independent watchdog organization, said in a statement Friday morning that it had requested access to ENFIN's internal audit documentation under the 2024 Transparency in Recovery Institutions Act. "Selective enforcement erodes public trust," said Forum spokesperson David Achterberg. "If there are systemic issues with the reporting infrastructure itself, that is a matter of broader concern than three individual institutions."
ENFIN's Lindström, when asked whether the irregularities might reflect technical faults rather than compliance failures, said the network was "examining all possibilities" but emphasized that the procedural framework "does not distinguish between causes at this stage of review."
The suspensions mark the first enforcement action under ENFIN's revised institutional governance charter, adopted in February 2025 following the network's expanded mandate under the UN Emergency Framework. Industry analysts noted that the charter grants ENFIN broader investigative authority than its predecessor agreements but provides limited appeal mechanisms for affected institutions.
