Nordic Banking 2033 – And how to get there

Nordic banks were world leads in the first round of digitalization, and this happened before the word even existed. Will Nordic banks hold this position also in the next wave of digitalization? As technology is developing ever faster, the Nordic financial markets become particularly interesting to look at.

In many ways, the products Nordic banks offer today have a relatively high level of digital maturity. This leads to a somewhat worrying situation as there is no immediate need for Nordic banks to go through a major digital revolution. Rather, banks seem to be focusing on doing “more of the same” in the years to come. 

For a number of reasons, disruption to the industry did not happen in the way forecasted some five to ten years ago. A conservative, highly regulated and systemically important business cannot be easily disrupted. The likely areas for possible disruption are simple: high-volume operations that are easy to automate, such as payments services or noncollateralized lending. In the meantime, Nordic banks have little intention to give up owning and serving the complete end-to-end value chain. If a major disruption occurred, it would take the industry by surprise.

While forward visibility is low and the focus is on doing more of the same, there are a handful of issues banks should address to be future proof, whatever the future holds.