According to an article in the Swedish-language daily Hufvudstadsbladet, Finland's ombudsman of non-discrimination says the Helsinki Administrative Court found that S-Bank has discriminated against non-Finnish customers..
The ombudsman said that in two documented cases, S-Bank would not accept identification credentials from customers even though the documents were issued within the EU or European Economic Area.
In the most recent case, the paper reports, S-Bank refused to accept the UK passport of a British citizen and demanded that a Finnish ID be presented if the customer wanted online banking code privileges.
The court said that the bank has the right to demand extra identification credentials only in cases when there are well-founded suspicions of money laundering or financing of terrorism, the paper writes.
Cruise ship cancellations
An outbreak of norovirus on the Silja Symphony cruise ship has caused some 150 passengers and crew to become ill during the past week. The cruise company contacted people on Wednesday to give them the option to cancel, after which close to 300 passengers - or roughly a quarter of the ship's passengers that day – cancelled their travel plans, according to the evening tabloid Iltalehti.
Over one thousand passengers did board the ship on Wednesday, but the norovirus problem appears to be continuing, despite a thorough disinfectant scrubbing of all the ship's surfaces. Silja's communications director reported Thursday that an additional five people had fallen ill.
In a separate online article, Iltalehti notes that at least one thousand people are scheduled to board Symphony in Helsinki on Friday to travel to the Stockholm Marathon on Saturday.
Marathon runner Minna Launonen, who's booked on the ship Friday, told the paper that she is considering asking for a refund, saying she is weighing whether to take a Viking Line ship or fly there on a plane instead.
What's middle class in Finland?
Ilta-Sanomat, Finland's second major tabloid, took a hard look at the numbers which may or may not define middle class – depending on whom you ask.
A motivation for the breakdown of salaries and definitions class was due to a statement by Interior Minister Petteri Orpo that people in the cleaning profession belong to the "middle class."
The minister - who's running for the chair of the National Coalition Party with concern for the middle class a central platform of his candidacy - made the comments in an interview with Ilta-Sanomat on Thursday.
The paper took a look at average earnings of several professions in the services fields and found that average incomes falling within "middle class" varied wildly.
By the most stringent definitions, the paper wrote, people in the middle class earn between "2,062 to 4,419 euros per month." Under less exacting guidelines the salaries varied even more, ranging from just under 1,800 euros to nearly 5,900 euros per month.
In other words, the paper writes, the definition of "middle class" has a wide berth.
Using guidelines from the German Institute for Economic Research, DIW, the lower end of middle class incomes lies at just over 2,000 euros per month. According to the DIW, the middle class upper limit is 150 percent of the country's overall median income, which in Finland amounts to just over 4,400 euros per month, the paper writes.
The paper also listed around 50 jobs and their correlating salaries - none of which reached the middle class level.
The list included cleaners, who earn an average of just under 2,000 euros per month.
The lower paying jobs on the list include farm workers and general labourers, who earn around 1,650 euros per month. At the top – but still not technically qualifying as "middle class" – include municipal maintenance subcontractors and retail cashiers who earn around 2,050 euros per month.
According to a Helsingin Sanomat survey in 2011, the paper writes, 55 percent of people in Finland believe they belong to the middle class.