DNB, Bank | Helge's DNB nightmare:

(The newspaper online) On Good Friday, March 29, Helge Rolstadas was informed that he had transferred from Spanken to DNB.

It's been 76 days.

There is still complete confusion about how many savings accounts he had, where he was on the waiting list, and why DNB canceled the transfer of his stock funds.

– I'm about to give up

– They are unable to answer me, neither in Sbanken nor DNB, – says Rolstadås to Nettavisen – and tells us how he became a pawn in the system.

– I'm about to give up. Three of the five stock savings accounts DNB gave me turned out to be wrong. Plus, I got a new account number that I've never seen before. I just created an additional savings account for stocks, so I understand little of this.

– Clean is impossible

As a result, he is constantly told that the deal cannot be completed.

Rollestadas The project is simple: transfer mutual funds to money provider Storebrand Kron and individual stocks to Swedish online broker Nordnet.

– It turned out to be impossible.

Helgi Rolstadas feels desperate:

– For about three months, I've been trying to get an overview of the joint savings accounts (AKS) I have. “I can't believe it would be this difficult,” says Rolstadas.

Tronder says he spent endless hours on the phone, email, direct messages and chat.

He is not alone.

Customers are not allowed to talk to the bank after the DNB takeover

Several thousand are in trouble

Several thousand Sbanken customers have had problems transferring stock savings accounts to other money providers and that funds and stocks are unavailable for several months.

“According to Finanstilsynet’s assessment, the delay that occurred constitutes a violation of tax law regulations,” says a letter from Finanstilsynet to DNB seen by Dagens Næringsliv (DN).

Sbanken's mobile clients therefore struggle to be able to buy and sell shares, but according to DNB, clients have “full disposition rights during the transfer,” according to the same document.

– nightmare

– Sbanken was once the most innovative, simplest and most customer-friendly bank in Norway. Now I have no idea whether I am a DNB or Sbanken customer, nor what to do to escape it.

Rolstadas is tired of apologies:

– They can claim that it is sad and disturbing, but the truth is that it is a nightmare that they created themselves knowingly, willingly, and with their eyes open. The sad thing is that Norway's best and most customer-friendly bank has become a nightmare for an organization unable to help its customers with something as simple and everyday as transferring a stock savings account (or five…).

– almost a full-time job in itself

On May 8, Rolstadas emailed DNB asking about the case. There he asks if DNB has an overview, what accounts are running and what he should do specifically to avoid being rejected and ending up at the end of the queue again.

– This is almost a full-time job in itself and it is very frustrating, Helgi Rolstadas tells Netavisen.

It was competition in the market for the distribution of funds that prompted the Norwegian Competition Authority to reject DNB's takeover of Sbanken in 2021 – a decision that was overturned by the Competition Appeal Board the following year.

He admits the wait is too long

Communications advisor for DNB's Sbanken concept, Julia Stelzer Norberg, told Nettavisen that they do not comment on individual cases in the media.

– But of course we have a great understanding of customers who have to wait too long to transfer their stock savings accounts. Because there are so many parties involved, in some cases, there is a lot of communication back and forth between us at Sbanken, the client itself and the service provider the client is moving to, she admits.

She adds that as long as customers give them the assurances they need, “they get it done, even if in some cases the wait time is longer than it should be.”

Watch an interview with former DNB Director Ingerd Blekeley Spiten and Sbanken CEO Øyvind Thomassen about the DNB customer journey here: