The consolidation of the Nordic financial services means that today there are six major banks in the region: Danske Bank; Nordea; Svenska Handelsbanken; SEB; Swedbank; and DnB NOR. This process has generated a considerable amount of work for corporate and competition lawyers in all of the jurisdictions involved. However, the market has now reached a stage where any further consolidation among these banks would be difficult to envisage, and the thwarted merger between SEB and Swedbank in 2001 was probably the final attempt at a major merger in a domestic market for the fore-seeable future. Even though the banking landscape appears to be stable, there is, nonetheless, considerable activity in the financial services sector.
In 2003, OMX was created through a merger between HEX and OM to provide an integrated Nordic and Baltic market for listing, clearing, settlement and depository of securities. OMX offers access to 80% of the Nordic and Baltic securities market and includes the stock exchanges in Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallin, Riga and Vilnius. Through co-operation with the exchanges in Oslo, Copenhagen and Reykjavik, the entire Nordic region is covered. In general, financial growth is likely to be higher in Eastern Europe than in the Nordic region. This is presumably the case also with regard to the securities market. OMX is therefore likely to try to pursue its announced interest in increasing its market and include also the stock exchange in Warsaw as a further step.
