From a purely reporting point of view, Swedbank delivered a perfectly ok report for the fourth quarter last year and the stock exchange breathed out. Profit landed at SEK 5400 million, mainly because revenue increased. Net interest income - what the bank earns on its lending - was slightly worse than expected. There is fierce competition in the mortgage market and this is something that Swedbank has obviously noticed.

The dividend is proposed to be reduced from 14:20 to 8:80. The bank has previously decided to distribute only a small portion of the profits in order to be able to meet new tougher rules on capital requirements for the banks and for any money laundering fines. What surprised something was that Swedbank took a credit hit of close to a billion in the fourth quarter. It is associated with loans to the Norwegian oil industry.

Swedish and American investigations continue to hang over the bank

In addition, the US and Swedish investigations against Swedbank continue to hang over the bank. The Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority's report is expected to be completed in March while in the United States it may take a couple of years. The bank also has its own law firm investigation which will be completed this spring. The CEO Jens Henriksson states in the report that the work on money laundering will never end but that they are not worried that the bank will be able to pay any fines.

The fight against money laundering costs both in the form of damaged confidence in the bank and in increased costs for the new money laundering department. Swedbank is also trying to win back the trust of its customers by symbolically freezing in the bonus for 170 managers this year. This is a total of SEK 13 million. What happens to the bonus that managers earned during the time the money laundering was going on is still unclear.

Swedbank would like to turn pages but until shareholders and customers know how big the fines, the money laundering scandal will hang over the bank.