Strategy and Financial Performance of Nordic Banks

• Main Author: Murad, J M Tuhidul Haque
• Other Authors: Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu 2014
• Subjects: Nordic banks; strategy; financial performance; vision; competitive strategy; growth strategy; ROA; ROE; NIM; fi=Tuotantotalous|sv=Produktionsekonomi|en=Industrial Management|; Industrial Management; Ylempi AMK (in English); Roa; Iceland
• Online Access: http://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/76294

This study focuses on the correlation between strategy and financial performance of Nordic Banks observed over the period of 2008 to 2012. The main objective of the study was to overview what types of strategy have been used by the Nordic banks except Iceland and the financial results of it. This study is limited to the financial institution within the banking sector of the Nordic countries except Iceland. Additionally, in order to successfully complete the study, the required data were collected from 29 Nordic banks available from the online archives and websites, and limited to a 5-year period, from 2008 to 2012. The research was carried out using the Nordic banks yearly annual reports from the target banks own online achieves. All the collected raw data were first categorized and combined into Microsoft Excel file for further analysis. Then, the collected data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test for the period from 2008 to 2012. The findings of the quantitative analysis did not found any obvious correlation between the strategy and financial performance of the Nordic banks. The result indicates that there was some significant correlation only between the vision of the banks and the Return on Equity, but there were no correlation between the vision used by a bank in the Nordic region and the profitability ratios as measured by Return on Assets (ROA) and Net Interest Margin (NIM). The quantitative analysis results also did not found any visible correlation between the competitive strategy used by the target banks and their financial performance. The variables of the financial performance in this analysis were Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Net Interest Margin (NIM). The results also did not find any obvious correlation between the Growth Strategy used by the Nordic banks and the profitability ratios of the banks as measured by ROA, ROE and NIM. The study also conducted the qualitative analysis by comparing two banks from the sample, the high performance and low performance banks. The ...