Swedbank has been granted permission to use IRB in Baltic Banking

Press Release March 6, 2009

Swedbank has been granted permission to use IRB in Baltic Banking 

Finansinspektionen (Swedish financial supervisory authority) has granted
Swedbank permission to use the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach in its
calculation of risk-weighted assets in AS Hansabank and its consolidation group
(Swedbank Baltic Banking).
The implementation of IRB approach in Swedbank Baltic Banking will only
marginally affect the Group's capital requirement on total. In the calibration
of the IRB system, Swedbank has chosen to be conservative and made sure to
include also the risk for currently un-known major negative shocks to the credit
portfolio. This has lead to that the average IRB risk weight of the portfolio as
a whole is roughly in line with that of the standardised approach.

The IRB approach will be applied to around 90% of total Swedbank Baltic Banking
risk exposure. The risk-weighted assets for the remaining part - consisting
mainly of exposures to sovereigns and other public sector entities as well as
non-profit organizations - are calculated in accordance with standardised
approach. 

The IRB approach is a credit risk assessment approach under the Capital
Requirement directive (Basel 2), according to which banks are allowed to
calculate capital requirements for credit risk based on own risk estimates. The
approach is more risk sensitive and derives more accurate estimates of capital
requirement than the standardised approach. 

Decision to grant permission to Swedbank Baltic Banking business unit was made
jointly between the Swedish and Baltic financial supervisory authorities after a
comprehensive review process.


For further information, please contact:
Johannes Rudbeck, Head of Investor Relations, Swedbank, phone: +46 70 582 56 56
Anna Sundblad, Press Manager, Swedbank, phone: +46 70 321 39 95


Swedbank's vision is to be the leading financial institution in the markets
where we are present. Swedbank has 9.4 million retail customers and 600,000
corporate customers with 419 branches in Sweden, 278 branches in the Baltic
countries and another 215 branches in Ukraine. The group is also present in
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Kaliningrad, Luxembourg, Moscow, New York, Oslo, Shanghai,
St. Petersburg and Tokyo. As of December 2008 the group had total assets of SEK
1,812 billion and approximately 21,000 employees. For more information about
Swedbank, please visit www.swedbank.com.