Björn Larsson New Head of Strategic Marketing and Branding at Swedbank

Press Release November 26, 2009

Björn Larsson New Head of Strategic Marketing and Branding at Swedbank

Björn Larsson, CEO and Chairman of Sweden's and the Nordic region's largest
advertising agency, Lowe Brindfors, has been recruited as Senior Vice President
and Head of Strategic Marketing and Branding at Swedbank with group
responsibility for branding and strategic marketing.

Björn, who has held his current position at Lowe Brindfors for 10 years, has
extensive experience from leading advertising agencies and media companies,
among others as CEO in Sweden of Leo Burnett and A-Com. He was recently
appointed the most influential head of advertising in Sweden by the magazine
Resumé, but his experience also goes beyond the advertising world.

- I'm extremely pleased with the recruitment of Björn. He has the drive, the
commitment and the experience needed to lead a strategic motivated change.
Furthermore, he has an extensive knowledge of leading very talented people -
which is exactly what we need, says Thomas Backteman, Executive Vice President
Corporate Affairs at Swedbank.
After PhD-studies in economics at Stockholm School of Economics, including
visiting years at Yale University and UC Berkeley, Björn has held a leading
position at Bonnier, been a senior consultant at McKinsey & Co, and has worked
at the Ministry of Industry's department of state owned enterprises. Further,
he's been the Olympic national swim coach and has coached the Olympic gold
champions Bengt Baron and Pär Arvidsson.

Björn will get a leading role within the reorganisation that Swedbank is
currently undertaking on the Communications- and Marketing side to streamline
Group functions across all markets, and where big focus will be put on the brand
issue. 

- I'm very excited to join Swedbank - which is a company I'm very familiar with
from having worked for many years from the other side of the business.
Swedbank's brand has big growth potential and I'm looking forward to being part
of that process from the marketing side, says Björn Larsson.

Björn Larsson will take up his position January 1, 2010.


Further information, please contact:
Thomas Backteman, Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs, Swedbank, phone:
+46 708-311 166   
Björn Larsson, Head of Strategic Marketing and Branding, Swedbank, phone: +46
708238600
Anna Sundblad, Press Manager, Swedbank, phone: +46 70 321 39 95

Swedbank's vision is to be the leading financial institution in the markets
where we are present. Swedbank has 9.4 million retail customers and 600,000
corporate customers with 419 branches in Sweden, 278 branches in the Baltic
countries and another 215 branches in Ukraine. The group is also present in
Copenhagen, Helsinki, Kaliningrad, Luxembourg, Moscow, New York, Oslo, Shanghai,
St. Petersburg and Tokyo. As of December 2008 the group had total assets of SEK
1,812 billion and approximately 21,000 employees. For more information about
Swedbank, please visit www.swedbank.com.