Swedbank is confident in its business outlook and capital levels and government criticism of a planned 10 billion crown ($1.6 billion) buyback is political posturing, the bank's chief financial officer said on Monday. On a day when the Nordic region's biggest bank, Nordea , announced plans to slash 2,000 jobs, Swedbank sees no need for wide-ranging restructuring, he added in an interview.
Goran Bronner, Swedbank's newly appointed CFO, said he was comfortable with the outlook the bank gave when it last reported financial figures and the pace of loan recoveries in the last two quarters of the year was still expected to be in between the levels of the first two quarters.
"As of today we don't feel we need to change the language compared to what we said at our quarterly presentation," he told Reuters, brushing off the impact of recent turbulent financial markets. Swedbank, which has recovered quickly after suffering a near 10 billion crown loss in 2009, forecast in the second quarter a gradual improvement in profit before credit impairments, excluding one-off items. Finance Minister Anders Borg said at the weekend that Swedbank's share repurchase programme was "irresponsible". Swedbank is the biggest bank in the Baltic region and was the worst hit of the Nordic banks during the financial crisis.