Nordea

Nordea was created from a series of mergers in the late 1990s involving major credit institutions in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The roots of its predecessor entities go back to 1820 with Sparekassen for Kjøbenhavn og Omegn in Denmark (later Unibank), 1832 with Wermlandsbanken in Sweden (later Nordbanken), 1848 with Christiania Kreditkasse in Norway (later Christiania Bank), and 1862 with the Union Bank of Finland, known by its Finnish initials SYP (for Suomen Yhdyspankki).

Founding mergers 1995-2000

The sequence of mergers started in 1995 when SYP merged with its decades-long domestic rival, Kansallis-Osake-Pankki (KOP), with the merged entity rebranded as Merita Bank. Merita Bank then merged with Nordbanken in 1997, rebranding again as MeritaNordbanken.

In early 2000, MeritaNordbanken announced its takeover of Unidanmark, by then Denmark's second-largest bank, creating the Nordic region's biggest financial institution with €186 billion in assets. The merged group had a banking market share of 20% in Sweden, 25% in Denmark and 40% in Finland and a combined workforce of 28,050. By end 2000, MeritaNordbanken had further merged with Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse of Norway, a process started in 1999 and changed its name to Nordea. Christiania Bank had also been impacted severely during the banking crisis in the early 1990s, with Nordea acquiring the bank from the Norwegian Government Bank Investment Fund with a 35% share.

Further development

The Solo internet-based banking operation of MeritaNordbanken was a global pioneer and leader providing mobile and internet banking access in 1999. The bank reached 1 million internet banking customers during 1999 with 3 million log-ins and 3.7 million payments per month. Housing loans via Solo were introduced in 1999.

Nordea expanded into Poland, the Baltics and Russia in the early 2000s, with 2% of total revenues from the Poland and Baltics region. Nordea divested its Polish banking operations in 2013, with the sale to PKO Bank Polski for €694 million but retains a presence in Poland via operations and IT units supporting the Nordic banks. By end 2014, lending in the Baltics was €8.2 billion and in Russia €4.5 billion. During the period 2013-2017 exposure to the Russian market was reduced by 63%.

In 2016, Luminor was formed by a merger of Nordea's and DNB's operations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania creating the third largest Baltic regional bank with assets of €15 billion and a market share of 16.4%. Luminor was sold to Blackstone, with Nordea and DNB retaining each initially a 20% share. However, the full divestment was completed in 2019. Exit from the Russian, Baltic and Polish markets were part of Nordea's de-risking strategy, which also included reduced exposures to some sectors (e.g. Shipping, Oil & Offshore and Agriculture in Denmark). Nordea was one of the Nordic banks, including Danske Bank, SEB and Swedbank, allegedly involved in the money laundering scandal, involving ex-Soviet states, that emerged in 2017.

2017 relocation and aftermath

Nordea announced plans to move its corporate headquarters from Stockholm, Sweden to Helsinki, Finland in September 2017. Nordea cited the Swedish socialist government's unpredictable tax hikes as the primary reason for its decision to relocate. Nordea estimated that relocation would save the bank a billion euros. The re-domiciliation of Nordea to Finland put it within the supervision of the European Central Bank and within the European Union's banking union. In October 2018, Nordea completed the move of its corporate headquarters to Helsinki, Finland.

Business areas

Nordea has four business areas: Personal Banking, Business Banking, Large Corporates & Institutions, and Asset & Wealth Management.

Subsidiaries

Following a major structural reorganisation, Nordea consolidated its Nordic operations into branches of the parent company. The following is a list of former subsidiaries and other historical entities.

Nordea Bank Abp (Finland) – headquartered in Helsinki

Former Subsidiaries (now branches of Nordea Bank Abp)

Denmark – formerly Nordea Bank Danmark A/S

Scandals

Nordea was the subject of an online phishing scam in 2007. The company estimated 8 million kr ($1.1 million) was stolen. Customers were targeted over a period of 15 months with phishing emails containing a trojan horse. Nordea refunded affected customers.

The largest financial group in the Nordic region, Nordea was, despite warnings from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) active in using offshore companies in tax havens according to the Panama papers. Other Swedish banks were mentioned in the documents, but mention of Nordea occurred 10,902 times and the second-most mentioned bank has 764 matches. In 2012, Nordea asked Mossack Fonseca to change documents retroactively so that three Danish customers power of attorney documents had been in force since 2010. Nordea bank loaned billions of euros to shipping companies that own vessels in secrecy jurisdictions such as Bermuda, Cyprus, Panama, BVI, the Cayman Islands and the Isle of Man. In the Paradise Papers, Nordea was shown to have lent a significant amount of money to customers based in tax havens. As a consequence of the leaked documents, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) stated on 4 April 2016 that it had started an investigation into the conduct of Nordea.

The Nordea section in Luxembourg, between the years 2004 and 2014, founded nearly 400 offshore companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands for its customers. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority (FI) pointed out that there are "serious deficiencies" in how Nordea monitors money laundering, and gave the bank two warnings. In 2015, Nordea paid the largest possible fine - over 5 million EUR. Stefan Löfven, Prime Minister of Sweden, said in 2016 that he was very critical of the conduct of Nordea and its role, and said: "They are on the list of shame too". The Swedish minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson characterized the conduct of Nordea as "a crime" and "totally unacceptable". The director for Nordea Private banking Thorben Sanders admits that before 2009 they did not screen for customers that tried to evade tax. "At the end of 2009 we decided that our bank should not be a means of tax evasion" says Thorben Sanders. Nordea CEO Casper von Koskull stated that he was disappointed with the shortcomings within Nordea's operating principles, saying that "this cannot be tolerated".

In 2013, Politiken, a Danish newspaper, revealed that Nordea's Copenhagen branch was instrumental in establishing approximately 100 offshore companies for Russian and other nationals, despite warnings about suspicious activities. In 2024, the Danish authorities indicted Nordea for violating anti-money laundering laws by allowing $3.7 billion of suspicious transactions by the Russian clients. According to the Danish authorities, it was most extensive moneylaundering ever committed by a financial company in the country.

In March 2019, public service broadcasting company, Yle, aired a program that revealed money laundering allegations against Nordea. The company was the biggest Nordic lender allegedly involved in the multi-million-dollar money laundering scheme, according to Bloomberg.

In July 2024, Nordea Bank was taken to court in Denmark over allegations of failing to prevent money laundering linked to Russian clients. The charges stem from transactions worth €3.8 billion, where Nordea is accused of neglecting proper oversight and ignoring red flags. Despite setting aside €95 million for potential fines, the actual penalty could be significantly higher, possibly approaching $1 billion.