Nordea’s lessons for pan-European banks

The experience of Nordea, as its CEO Casper von Koskull readily admits, is that international bank M&A in Europe must work beyond simple diversification and instead offer real economies of scale. 

Casper von Koskull, Nordea

The problem is that integrating previously independent institutions is always hard, especially when the mergers happen across borders (even in Europe and even in the Nordic region). For all Europe’s and Scandinavia’s economic and financial integration, strong cultural and regulatory differences remain.  This shows how hard it will be to build multi-nation institutions inside Europe, especially across countries that might have even greater cultural differences than Scandinavia – even if their regulatory convergence may now conversely be more advanced.