Nordea - Nordic banking leader

As the title suggests, Nordea is the banking leader in the Nordics. Multiple business areas provide nice diversification, and geographically, they are a major player across the Nordic countries. Their scale ensures that IT, compliance, marketing, etc., are a relatively smaller cost for Nordea compared to competitors, so Nordea’s position is quite strong :flexed_biceps: .
Given these starting points, it’s neither a surprise nor a problem if the largest player in a conservative industry generates a solid return on equity (cf. for example Inderes’ 2026 forecast ROE = 14.4%).

In the context of insurance companies, like Sampo, there has been talk of “serene competition” or “rational competition,” where there are no literal cartels, but companies don’t compete on price and industry players essentially print money :money_mouth_face: .
I have long wondered how competition on the banking side can remain rationally serene year after year. If Nordea’s return on equity as a large and strong player is good, then it’s probably “normal” and competition is functioning normally?
However, looking at banking companies, you quickly notice that Aktia, as a small player, generates ~13% ROE, SEB ~12%, Handelsbanken ~14%, Santander +15%, etc.

The ROE of ALL industry players is >> WACC, and yet competition doesn’t intensify :man_shrugging: .
Banks’ loan portfolios and revenues grow slowly, roughly at the rate of GDP; everyone’s capital yields excellently, everyone wants to grow, all operators are scalable, everyone would have an incentive to creep into competitors’ backyards, and yet we see no kind of competition—for example, loss-leader interest rate offers, etc.?

Mastercard and Visa are likely more partners to the banks than direct competitors, but in a digital world, various digital wallets and payment systems from Apple and Google—from Apple Pay to MobilePay—would surely love to suck consumers’ money from Finns directly to Silicon Valley, rather than to Nordea’s shareholders after Nordea’s expenses.

The link above contains an article about Revolut behind a paywall.
Aggressive visibility campaigns, rapid expansion.
Cheap currency exchange, payment cards, cryptos, etc.
So far, no loans in Finland, but Finnish account numbers are in the works and they will soon have 250,000 Finnish users.
The services have primarily interested young people, and naturally, older people currently have more wealth in places like Nordea.

This won’t eat into Nordea’s margins quickly either, but in any industry, tightening competition makes it harder to maintain high margins.

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