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Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo today announced that the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) has approved an application by Nordea Holding Abp, a new Helsinki, Finland-based subsidiary of Swedish bank Nordea Bank AB, to open a New York state-licensed branch of a foreign bank, following Nordea Bank AB’s decision to redomicile its principal office to Finland to be under the supervision of the European Central Bank. Nordea Bank AB, which currently has a New York branch licensed by DFS, will be merged into Nordea Bank Apb, and the Nordea Bank Abp branch will conduct the business of the existing New York branch once the change of domicile from Sweden to Finland is complete.
“DFS appreciates Nordea’s continued commitment to New York, where it has had a branch for 15 years,” Superintendent Vullo said. “After changing the domicile of its parent, Nordea’s New York branch will continue to operate under DFS’s strong regulatory oversight, consumer protections, and industry safeguards.”
Nordea Bank AB currently conducts its principal operations through a branch network in Denmark, Norway and Finland, with additional branches in Frankfurt, London, New York, Shanghai and Singapore. Sweden is not currently a member of the banking union within the European Union.
Nordea has stated that changing the domicile of its parent from Sweden to Finland, which is a member of the EU banking union, will result in its European operations being supervised in a more predictable and consistent way and will strengthen its competitive position and reduce regulatory risk.
There will be no changes to the scope of activities, staffing, governance structure or policies and procedures of the existing New York branch when its business is transferred to the Nordea Holding Abp New York branch.
Nordea is the largest financial services group in the Scandinavian market (Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden) as measured by total income and assets on a consolidated basis. Nordea offers a comprehensive range of banking and financial products and services to household and corporate customers, including financial institutions. As of December 31, 2017, had 160 branch offices in Finland and operations in 17 international locations.
New York DFS currently has a total of 139 state chartered commercial banks, savings banks and bank holding companies, 16 state-chartered credit unions, 84 foreign branches, 10 foreign agencies, and 27 representative offices, with assets totaling more than $1.8 trillion.
