Nordic and European wins for Nordea in leading Trade Finance awards

Based in London, Coalition Greenwich is a ‘leading global provider of strategic benchmarking analytics and insights to the financial services industry’. As part of their work to analyse the performance of banks in trade finance related services, Coalition Greenwich conducts an annual survey of the largest corporates in Western Europe, allocating awards based on the results.

In a survey of 523 large corporates (103 in the Nordics, 54 in the UK and 366 in the rest of Europe), Nordea came out on top as the Quality Leader and Share Leader (highest market penetration) in the Nordic region. According to Coalition Greenwich, market penetration refers to the proportion of companies interviewed that consider each bank as one of their trade finance providers.

In excellent company

Of the 110 banks evaluated, Coalition Greenwich also identified the top ranked banks that received a series of ‘Excellent’ ratings from companies across Western Europe. Subsequently, Nordea received the 2021 Greenwich Excellence Awards for European Large Corporate Trade Finance in Western Europe for Frequency of Visits, Quality of Advice and Error-free Execution.

Erik Zingmark, Head of Transaction Banking at Nordea, says: “These awards are a great indicator that we have made some really important steps forward in our Trade Finance offering. To receive this recognition as a result of feedback from some of the largest corporates in Europe is a significant achievement. Not only are we ahead in quality and market penetration in the Nordics, we have received excellence awards in some of the areas we have been working really hard to optimise. Frequency of visits – being there for our customers digitally during a very challenging period, quality of advice – really helping them to make the right decisions to consolidate and grow their businesses and error-free execution – making sure we get our solutions and services over the line despite the obstacles. We can be proud that we stand out amongst Europe’s best banks in these areas.”

When the going got tough

Coalition Greenwich noted: “The global pandemic cut global trade by about 5% in 2020, according to the World Trade Organisation. In the midst of that reduction, however, demand for trade finance services was actually growing among large European corporates. That increase, which spanned services for trade both within Western Europe and around the world, reflects companies’ need for expertise and assistance amid the COVID-19 crisis and geopolitical challenges. In this volatile environment, companies are not hesitating to reallocate business among trade finance providers to get the help they need.”

“Companies aren’t making these moves on the basis of price. In fact, since 2019, the share of large European corporates citing pricing as one of their top considerations when selecting a trade finance provider dropped from approximately three-quarters to about one half. Instead of price, companies are focusing on products and services that can help them keep their businesses on track.”

Lena Hedengran, Acting Head of Trade Solutions at Nordea, says: “It’s really encouraging to see that these awards are based on the feedback from large corporates. We have done our upmost during the last year and a half to be proactive and stay close to our customers. We have held frequent digital meetings with them and even though the volume of global trade was reduced, we actually saw there was an increased need for trade finance solutions. We have been on a journey to support our customers digitally and this proved to be very valuable when the more traditional physical and paper ways of conducting trade became difficult. Our service minded approach and trusted expertise has proved to be very helpful, in particular when companies navigate large and complex transactions.”

For more information about Trade Solutions at Nordea check out nordea.com.