Financial Crisis How the Nordic banks learned their lesson

The British Government may have used the Nordic bank nationalisations of the 1990s as a template for its attempt to solve the financial crisis. Although traumatic at the time, the experience in Norway, Sweden and Finland was ultimately beneficial to the taxpayer – but not to the shareholders. Norway faced the biggest problems, and Steinar Juel, chief economist at Nordea, Scandinavia's biggest bank, believes that London and Oslo will almost certainly have held talks before Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling unveiled his rescue package on Tuesday. "The Bank of Norway published a very thorough report which is studied widely," Mr Juel said. When Whitehall officials looked at that report they will have found eerie comparisons with today's problems. The Nordic crisis, in 1991-93, was sparked by a property boom,... [read full story]