Nordic Banks "Q2 preview - more of the same" Ekblom

Research evidence excerpt

Nordic Banks "Q2 preview - more of the same" Ekblom

Global Research

2 July 2026ab

Nordic Banks Equities

Europe Ex. UKQ2 preview - more of the same

Banks

Johan Ekblom, CFA

Nordics still less favoured in current environment. Analyst

While Nordic banks were briefly outperforming the sector during the period of increased johan.ekblom@ubs.com

macro uncertainty, the more stable outlook has resulted in the Nordics once again +44-20-7568 3580

underperforming the sector. Currently, the Nordics are trading at a 14% premium to the Joshua Humphreys

sector vs. their historical average premium of 18%. With absolute valuations high (11.0x Associate Analyst

2027E EPS and 1.8x 2026E TNAV) and relative P/E screening neutral/slightly cheap in a joshua.humphreys@ubs.com

historical context, we don’t see a clear reason to turn more positive on the Nordic banks +44-20-7567 0385

at this point in time. We continue to advocate a selective stance, and see the most Franziska Fischer

attractive risk/reward in Danske Bank, Nordea and NOBA and the least attractive in Economist

Handelsbanken and DNB. franziska.fischer@ubs.com

+41-44-239 2054

Broadly in-line forecasts but upside to fees.

Our Q2 forecasts for Nordic banks are broadly in-line with Visible Alpha consensus as of

the time of writing. The main two outliers are stronger fee income and lower credit

losses. We expect the strong market performance in Q2 (both the absolute performance

and effect of daily averaging) to be supportive of both AUMs and gross margins, with

further positive impact from advisory. While we see clear near-term positives, we do not

see a reason to extend this past Q2 currently, and we factor in slightly lower credit

demand and lower steady state rates than the market in 2028 (we believe). With this