At a time when no banker wants to reveal the real worth of the mountains of worthless commercial paper upon which they are sitting, the third-largest Danish bank, Jyske Bank, pulled a no-no which is sure to upset the whole Danish (and international) banking sector. Amidst speculation that it had exposure to the subprime crises, it moved announcing their quarterly earnings report forward one week. Presenting its earnings two days ago, the bank stated losses of 30 million euros from the latest crisis. But it then proceeded to reveal a long listing of its exposure, with a stated price for all of the bad paper, something everybody wants to avoid.

The biggest Danish bank, Dansk Bank, is now under pressure to do the same, when it publishes its quarterly earnings in a week. Dansk Bank has been doing off-balance-sheet dealings, something that is not allowed under Danish laws, through their American daughter company regulated by American law.

Although the Danish banking sector is considered conservative by British standards, and still has regulation that has prevented some of the worse excesses, it is headed for big hits like everywhere else. The Danish stock market has been pumped up by the banks getting ordinary people to take geared investment credits with only the increased value of their house as collateral. That might turn into big trouble soon. Denmark has one of the most overvalued home-mortgage bubbles in the world.