Banking in Finland was hit very hard by an economic recession of unseen proportions in the early 90s. One unfortunate aspect was that local banks before that had hastily been deregulated and massed into commercial lending without the needed experience. This might still have been manageable - but the unrealistic attempts to keep the Finnish Markka on a too high level with high (even extremely high) interest rates - led to rapid growth in very much cheaper foreign currency denominated loans.

When this ended with a 35% devaluation and massive loan losses, most of the Savings bank camp was eliminated. The lending capacity of the sound banks was supported by their shareholders and subordinated loans from the government. I was in charge of the Helsinki-Uusimaa district at Union Bank of Finland in those days and can say that it was hard work and long days - but we did manage to save most of the borrowers with realistic prospects. Of course there was also good money after bad,  as bankers seldom want to admit defeat.

Lessons learned: 

(i) You cannot fail in banking if credit quality is handled professionally - and the other way around,

(ii) you should always take the long view in workouts,

(iii) small currencies can be dangerous,

(iv) bad banks and their customers should be sorted out over time - Lehman Brothers quick-bust model was a mistake that lead to a global run on banks. Luckily tax payers came out with profits in most cases.

(v) banks and other lenders that pay more than market rates for their funding will usually go bust (like the Icelandic) - deposit protection is misused and should in no case cover interest.

One result of the economic recession and its impact on banks was that Kansallis-Osake-Pankki and Union Bank of Finland merged. This created the largest bank in the Nordic area. Named Merita Bank (-96) it took over the global leadership in absolute number of e-banking transactions from UBF.  I was pleased to see how enthusiastically new colleges signed up both e-banking customers and soon also e-invoicing contracts to SMEs. 

As we feared foreign takeover of such a fundamental national institution we approached the state-owned Swedish Nordbanken. Merita-Nordbanken was created in 1997. I was in charge of the new bank's payments, remote service and e-banking era and was extremely pleased to see how the SOLO-brand was adopted and e-banking took off like a rocket in Sweden. Also e-business services like e-identification, e-payments and e-invoicing were quickly introduced.

You might wonder, why e-banking had to be imported from Finland. The simple answer is that we had started already in the late 70s in Finland and this was due to the center-less payment infrastructure that encouraged forceful competition. In other Nordic countries there was a joint Bankgiro organisation handling most of the payments. Technology orientation among Finnish engineers and IT-experts has besides always been strong and management did accept under-the-radar experimenting.

The next step was the merger with the second largest bank in Denmark - Unibank (-00) Also here I was impressed by the e-Banking enthusiasm. It had been pent of for years as the collective stance had been that Internet banking cannot be safe enough. Rapid progress was achieved and my Danish team also took responsibility for the new cross-border cash management solutions for large enterprises.

This was followed by Christiana Bank - the second largest commercial bank in Norway - joining the group (-00) - soon renamed  Nordea Bank. My Norwegian team was very advanced in the payment area in general.
Our expansion and world leading role in e- and m-banking was keenly followed by investment bank analysts and international media (I have an impressive collection of buy-recommendations and quite glowing articles). This source of pride gave further motivation for selling e-banking in the then wide branch network.

Nordea Bank (now headquartered in Helsinki) is one of the most profitable and well capitalised banks in Europe. It ranks number three in market value in the €-area. Is usually the biggest tax payer among listed companies in Finland and normally pays over on fifth of all dividends. 
Lessons learned:

(i) crossborder mergers are not easy - but easier when you have something much needed like e-banking and e-business services to bring to the party (ever so grateful for getting such a warm welcome in the thousand strong addition to the Finnish team,

(ii) be fast with the easy parts - with young energetic teams. Break some rules (easier to be forgiven than getting permission..). Use easy to remember brands and even sexy and silly slogans. You have to get under the skin of both staff and customers real fast,

(iii) close to realtime follow-up of e-banking contracts/active customer/branch/regional bank/country created a very sporty competition across borders, 

(iv) huge saving can be made in IT - but should be done step-by-step,

(v) the many international rewards for e-banking, e-commerce-services and mobile banking was (and still is) important for the staff’s sense of purpose 

(vi) mobile banking did not get much support in the beginning as regional organisations thought that e-banking was good enough (seen also earlier in Finland) > you have to take the long view and have stamina,

(vii) I did suggest in -99 that e-services should not start from products but be designed starting from the services, information and data private and corporate customers needed in their various life events. I even - half in jest - suggested that the bank should be organised around the life events. Too early - as some of the data needed was outside the bank and no interoperability-by-design wallets were yet on the horizon. Very glad to see the Nordea.dk.fi.no.se now have Your Life on the front pages. The next stage with the wallets will bring in (and send out) data from/to other sources across all sectors and borders (WITHOUT technical integration) in totally revolutionary ways. More about SSI/ToIP/Findy/NSG/EWC and proper eIDAS2 interoperable use-for-all-purposes later..