Nordic Diversified Banks: Views Into 2Q2026 Earnings - Nordic Banks Monthly, July 2026

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Nordic Diversified Banks: Views Into 2Q2026 Earnings - Nordic Banks Monthly, July 2026

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08 Jul 2026 12:35:52 ET │ 43 pages

Nordic Diversified Banks

Views Into 2Q26 Earnings - Nordic Banks Monthly, July 2026

CITI'S TAKE

Shrey Srivastava AC

Nordic banks will start 2Q26 reporting with DNB on 14 July, and finish with +44-20-7986-2608

Danske & Swedbank on 17 July. Investor focus will likely remain on volume shrey.srivastava@citi.com

trends, the outlook for margins and fee income developments. Going

forward, we most prefer Danske’s attractive NII/fee and capital return story Guru Prasad Chowdhary

(see Deep Dive and post-strategy update note) and believe the Swedish +91-22-4277-5022

banks should underperform the sector. Our rank order is Danske (Buy) > guru.prasad.chowdhary@citi.com

Nordea (Buy) > DNB (Neutral) > SEB (Neutral) > Swedbank (Neutral) > SHB

(Neutral). Andrew Coombs, CFA

+44-20-7986-4053

Setup Into Results — The Nordic banks’ performance has been mixed YTD, rising andrew.coombs@citi.com

~2-15% vs the SX7P rising ~16%. Over the last month and YTD, Danske has

performed best (up 11% & 15% respectively), which we expect to continue given its

relatively cheaper valuation vs Nordic peers and our above-consensus view on

earnings. Meanwhile we expect the Swedish banks to underperform over time, given

a less favourable rate outlook and continued competitive headwinds.

Views Into Quarter — We expect to see limited benefits of rate hikes in 2Q26 for the

Nordic banks, given the ECB hiked late in 2Q, and 8-week notice periods before

changing rates in Norway would limit their benefit for the quarter. We expect some

recovery in fees given solid primary activity and market performance, and prefer

Danske (higher fees) while being relatively cautious DNB.