Swedbank

Swedbank AB

Company type	Publicly traded Aktiebolag (Nasdaq Stockholm: SWED)
Industry	Financial services
Founded	1820 (1820)
Headquarters	Stockholm, Sweden
Key people	Birgitte Bonnesen (President and CEO), Lars Idermark (Chairman)
Products	Retail banking, mortgage loans, corporate banking, merchant processing services
Revenue	SEK 33.515 billion (2010)
Operating income	SEK 15.423 billion (end 2011)
Net income	SEK 11.744 billion (end 2011)
Total assets	SEK 1.857 trillion (end 2011)
Total equity	SEK 98.133 billion (end 2011)
Number of employees	16,287 (FTE, end 2011)
Subsidiaries	Swedbank Luxemburg, Swedbank Russia, Swedbank Estonia, Swedbank Latvia, Swedbank Lithuania, Swedbank Ukraine
Website	www.swedbank.com

Swedbank AB (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈswɛdːbæŋk]) is a Nordic-Baltic banking group based in Stockholm, Sweden, offering retail banking, asset management, financial, and other services.

History

The first Swedish saving bank was founded in Gothenburg in 1820. In 1992, a number of local savings banks merged to create Sparbanken Sverige ("Savings Bank Sweden"). In 1995, this bank was listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and in 1997, it merged with Föreningsbanken under the combined name FöreningsSparbanken (abbreviated FSB). During the late 2000s global financial crisis, Swedbank accepted government assistance due to its losses from loans made to neighboring Baltic economies.

On 8 September 2006, Föreningssparbanken AB changed its name to Swedbank AB. The name change took place in the afternoon local time, after the Swedish Companies Registration Office registered the changes in the company’s articles of association. On the same date, the subsidiary AB Spintab changed its name to Swedbank Hypotek AB ("Swedbank Mortgage AB") and FöreningsSparbanken Jordbrukskredit AB changed its name to Swedbank Jordbrukskredit AB ("Swedbank Farm Credit AB"). Other subsidiaries will change their names at later dates.

Organisation

Swedbank sign above an automated teller machine in Karlskrona.

File:FSB logo.jpg

The Swedbank logo (1997—2006). FöreningsSparbanken was created in 1997 through a merger between Sparbanken and Föreningsbanken. The unusual corporate name and logo were compromises of the merger of two different corporate cultures.

Swedbank has 9.5 million retail customers and 622,000 corporate customers in Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The group has 317 branches in Sweden and more than 200 in the Baltic countries. It also maintains a presence in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Luxembourg, Marbella, New York City, Oslo, Shanghai.

Swedbank has a close cooperation with about 60 local, but still independent, saving banks who chose not to join during the 1992-merger. These banks use FSB logos and customers have the same access to independent banks and branches belonging to FSB. Two relatively large independent savings banks, including the one in Skåne, have chosen not to cooperate with Swedbank and continue to use the logo used by Sparbanken before the merger with Föreningsbanken.

Together with the independent savings banks, Swedbank has branches all over Sweden. The bank has more than 16,000 employees across its operations in Sweden and abroad. Michael Wolf is the Chief Executive Officer and Lars Idermark is Chairman.

Market position

Swedbank is one of the primary banks in Sweden, together with Nordea, Handelsbanken, and SEB. In 2001, a deal to merge Swedbank (then FSB) with SEB failed as the European Commission thought that the merged company would have had too dominant a position in the Swedish banking market. Today, Swedbank has 4.1 million private customers in Sweden.

External links

• Official website