"Entering the next phase of our transformation journey"

Ever since SEB was founded in 1856 we have been committed to delivering long-term value to our customers Statement from the President and shareholders. Based on leading customer experience combined with a robust balance sheet and sound credit exposure, we aim to serve our customers through good times and bad.

As the global economy moves past peak growth in the cycle, change has also become the new normal in the banking landscape. Our ability to balance our long-term perspective with speed and swiftness in our daily operations will be essential to our success going forward. In 2018, the financial market’s longlasting resilience came to a halt towards the end of the year as positive business and market sentiment turned into late cyclical concerns. Being a universal bank with a diversified business, we benefited from our exposure across customer segments, products and geographies. Corporate customers were the main drivers of our financial performance growth in 2018, while financial institutions compensated positively for the decrease in assets under management as market volatility and the resulting customer activity picked up towards the end of the year. Household mortgage volumes increased modestly throughout the year.

As we enter 2019, we are embarking on the next phase of our transformation journey towards our vision of delivering worldclass service to our customers. During 2018 we revisited our long-term strategic direction to ensure we remain the preferred choice for our customers, and the business plan for 2019–2021 is our first step of putting this vision into action.

In response to the continuous transformation of customer behaviours and technology as well as the regulatory and competitive landscapes, we have identified three strategic areas on which we will focus our efforts: strengthening our advisory capabilities, accelerating operational speed, and extending our digital distribution and offering.

Along with new technology and increasing competition, where transactional banking products are becoming more and more standardised, we believe that quality of advice – through digital and human interaction – will be a key differentiator for SEB to remain relevant to customers going forward. While having the right skills and competences is a prerequisite, we aim to better respond to specific customer needs and behaviours by applying new technology and enhancing the use of data in all our customer interactions.

New technology will also be implemented to accelerate speed in our ongoing digitalisation and automation journey, aiming to increase productivity and improve cost efficiency in response to the ever changing banking landscape. This will also enhance the customer experience by providing our customers with smarter, faster and safer solutions.

With financial services becoming more integrated into the daily life of customers, we also aim to leverage this increasingly interconnected banking landscape by widening SEB’s distribution network. Through partnerships and new technology we will offer our products and services to customers outside SEB while also identifying new, cutting-edge solutions from third-party providers to integrate in SEB’s full-service offering.

In addition to developing our core strengths, we also aim to leverage the new adjacent opportunities that emerge as the industry continues to change. In order to accelerate growth and further enhance profitability, SEB will invest in a selection of strategic initiatives as part of our new three-year business plan. Sustainability is one of these initiatives and is a response to the increasing demand from customers and our determination to become a role model in sustainability within the financial industry. With the trust put in us by our customers, shareholders and employees, we believe SEB is wellpositioned to innovate and drive the development in sustainable financial services. While continuing to integrate sustainability into our processes, we will also ensure we remain compliant and adhere to best-inclass code of conduct in order to position SEB as the go-to financial institution in the area of sustainability.

By investing in our future, we want to confirm our position as the leading Nordic bank for corporations and institutions, and a top universal bank in Sweden and the Baltic countries. In order to achieve this, people will remain at the core of everything we do. I am very proud to be part of the SEB team who relentlessly strive to reach our vision of world-class service and deliver long-term value to our customers and shareholders.

Stockholm, February 2019

Johan Torgeby
President and Chief Executive Officer