Handelsbanken's nomination committee appointed

In accordance with a decision taken by the Annual General Meeting
(AGM) of Handelsbanken on 23 April 2008, the nomination committee
shall have five members. Four of the members (the "Shareholders'
Representatives") shall represent the Bank's four largest
shareholders/shareholder groups in terms of votes, according to
shareholder information as at 31 August from the VPC (the Swedish
Central Securities Depository and Clearing Organisation), or which by
some other means prove to be among the largest shareholders (the"Largest Shareholders") on this date; the fifth member shall be the
Chairman of the Board.

The Chairman of the Board has now contacted the Bank's four Largest
Shareholders; each of these has appointed one representative who,
together with the chairman, will constitute the nomination committee
for the period until a new nomination committee is appointed by
mandate from the next general meeting. In this respect, the decision
of the AGM has been complied with, whereby the nomination committee
must not include representatives of companies which are significant
competitors of the Bank in any of its main areas of operations.

Using this definition, the four Largest Shareholders as at 31 August
2008 were Industrivärden, the Oktogonen Foundation, Alecta and AFA.
Together, the members of the nomination committee represent about 29%
of the number of votes for all shares in the Bank.

The nomination committee:
Mr Carl-Olof By, Industrivärden
Mr Henrik Forssén, Oktogonen Foundation
Mr Bo Selling, Alecta
Mr Lars Öhrstedt, AFA Försäkring
Mr Hans Larsson, Chairman of the Board of Handelsbanken

The matters to be discussed by the nomination committee are set out
on the Bank's website, www.handelsbanken.se/ireng, under the headings"Corporate Governance, Board" and "Nomination Committee".
Shareholders who wish to make proposals for the nomination committee
may do so by letter to the following address:  Svenska Handelsbanken,
Nomination Committee, CJS, SE-106 70 Stockholm, by 31 December 2008.

The 2009 Annual General Meeting of Svenska Handelsbanken will take
place on Wednesday, 29 April 2009.


For further information, please contact:

Hans Larsson, Chairman of the Board, +46 8 701 3050