Swedbank
 | |
| Publicly traded Aktiebolag (OMX: SWED) | |
| Industry | Financial services |
| Founded | 1820 |
| Headquarters | Stockholm, Sweden |
Key people | Birgitte Bondesen (President and CEO), Lars Idermark (Chairman) |
| Products | Retail banking, mortgage loans, corporate banking, merchant processing services |
| Revenue | SEK 33.515 billion (2010) |
| SEK 15.423 billion (end 2011) | |
| Profit | 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])[1] is a Nordic-Baltic banking group offering retail banking, asset management, financial, and other services.[2]
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 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, 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.
References
- ↑
- ↑ "Company Profile for Swedbank AB (SWEDA)". Bloomberg. Retrieved November 2012.
