Largest banks in Sweden 2019, by assets

As of October 2018, the formerly largest bank based in Sweden, Nordea Bank Abp, chose to move their headquarters from Stockholm to Helsinki. This meant that the number of “storbanker” (large commercial banks) based in Sweden was down to three: Handelsbanken, SEB and Swedbank. Largest of these banks was Handelsbanken, whose total asset value peaked at over three trillion Swedish kronor in 2019.

 Loans of “storbanker”

   The three Swedish large banks mentioned above held 57 percent of the loans in Sweden in 2018. Foreign banks held 20 percent that year, which is a large share compared to what previously used to be around seven percent. The reason for this is that Nordea counts as a foreign bank in the statistics for 2018, after their change of headquarters.

Why did Nordea move to Helsinki?

      The decision of moving Nordea Bank’s headquarters from Stockholm to Helsinki was motivated by Finland already being a member of the Banking Union, as the only country of Nordea’s home market to be. The bank assumed it to be profitable for them to follow the same regulatory framework as other banks in the Banking Union. During 2018, Nordea’s household customer base was largest in Sweden, reaching 4.1 million. Though, their corporate customer market was the largest in Finland, and in 2019, their market penetration rate for large corporations reached 98 percent.