Nordea has a growing appetite for business: – A lot of things are going well in Norway – Nordea – Business

"We find that it's a good quarter, where we have done more transactions with more customers than before and have therefore experienced positive developments in Norway, both from the than on the corporate side, "said Snorre Storset, director of Nordea in Norway.

Storbanken presented the third quarter results on Wednesday. The Norwegian banking sector is seeing growth in customers and loans, but is disappointing in the financial phase for the big bank as a whole.

According to Dow Jones Newswires, after – tax profit from operations in Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Norway amounted to 684 million euros, which is below the expectations of analysts, who say they do not have the same profit. were set at 706 million euros.

CEO Casper von Koskull said the revenues were "disappointing and characterized by seasonal effects," according to the news agency. During the reporting period, the bank's turnover decreased from € 327 million to € 2.05 billion.

"All is well in Norway now

In the Norwegian business, Storset is concerned with the supply of new customers and increased lending.

During the last accounting period, Nordea received 9,200 new individual customers in Norway. Here, loans grew at an annual rate of 6.9% in the third quarter.

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For businesses, the corresponding growth in loans was 6% in the quarter, indicating increased business activity, according to Nordea.

The appetite for the debt is due in part to increased investment, according to Storset, which indicates demand for new loans in the areas of energy, seafood, commercial real estate and ICT.

"This is largely due to the fact that everything is going well in Norway now.The two oil investments are going from stable development to strong growth.We are seeing an increase in investments in Norway, higher incomes for consumers and good growth in consumption, he said.

In surveys of Nordea customers, the majority of them said they expect future expansion.

"Where we used to say that we were geared towards growth and that we could be happy to fund good projects, we now see that there are good projects that we can actually fund." we think there will be a high level of activity in the future, "said Storset.

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Look up in the oil

In petroleum-related industries, suppliers will be helped by rising investment in oil, Storset said. According to estimates by Norges Bank, after oil companies have sharply reduced their use of silver during the oil industry, a new recovery is now expected, especially next year.

"Still on the oil front, we find that we have reached the bottom and that it is also beginning to increase, especially in the services sector.When you make larger investments in the oil sector, you will need a lot of money. "said Nordea.

However, the situation is twofold among oil suppliers, with overcapacity in the offshore segment, an area in which supply lines are located, Storset points out.

"We find that there is still overcapacity at sea. Even here you see more positive signals, but it will take time before overcapacity disappears," he said.

Nordea in Norway has set aside less money to cover the losses. The provision for losses of NOK 320 million in the third quarter of last year was reduced to NOK 80 million at this junction.

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Jump of interest

As clients of other banks, Nordea's individual customers have seen an increase in borrowing costs this fall. When Norges Bank raised its key rate, banks quickly followed the increase in borrowing costs of its customers.

Storset does not think that this will necessarily slow down the bank's lending activity, and this for several reasons.

"What we see so far is more employment, lower unemployment, wage increases, or even a shortage of manpower gradually, which increases Its purchasing power At the same time, you have several new homes on the market, a slight increase in interest rates.

"These factors are a bit against each other.We see that there is still good activity in the housing market.We do not see that this will change, from what we see so far, in any case, "said Storset.