<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/83b62d48-a2c4-4940-87a7-efe60282732d/9BE42ED4-7923-414C-9E25-CE8AE9173064/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html" href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.ft.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html"><P>Swedbank, Sweden’s fourth largest banking group, posted a bigger-than-expected second-quarter loss and prepared to slash jobs as it felt the impact of huge provisions for loans in the recession-rocked Baltic region.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html"><P>It marked a second quarterly loss in a row for Swedbank as it seeks – in common with several of its peers in the Nordic region – to weather double-digit contractions in the economies of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, where it is a major player.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html"><P>Loan losses including provisions for possible future non-payment of borrowers’ debts were SKr6.67bn against an expected SKr5.99bn, the bank said on Friday. Net write-offs totalled SKr534m.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html">The huge provisions reflect the depth of the recession sweeping through the Baltics and Eastern Europe</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b9771ee6-729f-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0.html"><P>Some analysts believe that the Baltic countries, led by IMF-aid-recipient Latvia, could devalue their currencies, making the situation for banks even worse as the many borrowers who have euro-denominated loans face bigger repayments.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/9BE42ED4-7923-414C-9E25-CE8AE9173064/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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