After years of fighting the banks – Norwegian bitcoin broker Sturle Sunde finally gets to open a bank account

The Norwegian Sturle Sunde runs Bitmynt, one of Norway’s biggest bitcoin exchanges. Last year, he chose to sue Nordea after he got his private account shut down by the bank, but later lost in court.

At the beginning of 2019, Sunde received a green light from the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway to conduct exchange operations with bitcoin, something he hoped would help him open corporate accounts in Norwegian banks. However, that was not the case.

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Sued another bank

In March, Sunde chose to sue yet another bank, namely the local Sparebanken Sogn og Fjordane, because they too did not want to give him a corporate account.

Now, however, Sunde writes in a press release that the bank “threw in the towel” and offered him a corporate account anyway.

“After receiving a statement from the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway, we have made a new assessment of the case”, the bank writes in a letter to Sunde, according to the press release.

“This feels very good. I am done with a long fight against the banks and can finally start working on developing and running a new company with new services that I have planned for a long time”, says Sturle Sunde to Trijo News.

Was it expected?

“Yes actually. The only thing that was uncertain was how long the bank could stall it. I have received very clear signals from the Financial Supervisory Authority that the banks have been wrong”, says Sturle Sunde.

Will appeal against Nordea

Sturle Sunde now intends to appeal the previous verdict regarding Nordea. He thinks he has good chances to win the trial, although the case is not that urgent now as he has solved a bank account elsewhere.

“The case against Nordea has been strengthened since the Financial Supervisory Authority got on the right track and clarified that banks cannot just reject customers because of general risk, but must make an individual assessment,” says Sturle Sunde’s lawyer Amund Noss in the press release.

Sparebanken Sogn og Fjordane has previously stated that they do not comment on customer relations.

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