Banking Under the Influence of History? Remembering and Forgetting at Danske Bank

In this chapter, building on insights from behavioural finance and a uses-of-history and narrative approach, I discuss if and how history, remembering and forgetting, or silencing played a role in Danske Bank’s approach to banking between the post-war period and the financial crisis of 2008. I examine if, and how, internal and external remembering of the bank’s fatal crash in the 1920s contributed to shape the worldview, practices, and cultural blueprint of Danske’s shifting CEOs, and how history was used and embedded in the organization. The analysis considers the shifts in context, from the period of post-war financial stability to the re-emergence of financial instability with the neo-liberal great transformation that followed the failure of Bretton Woods and the stagflation crisis of the 1970s.