Nordea CEO Sees Confidence Return as Sovereign Debt Crisis Eases

Investors previously rattled by the European sovereign debt crisis have gained confidence that governments and banks will survive, Nordea Bank AB's (NDA.SK) chief executive said Tuesday.

"The risk picture has changed dramatically from where it was a year ago. The risk has gone down," Christian Clausen told reporters on the fringes of a conference on banking regulation and supervision in Helsinki, Finland.

However, Mr. Clausen warned that the European economy isn't out of the woods and that lower risk consciousness "is creating platform for growth that may come one day. We don't see it right now, but it may come one day."

He welcomed the convergence in rules for banks and their enforcement in Europe. A single rulebook and centralized supervision for big banks "must be a good thing. All big banks are cross-border," he said.

Mr. Clausen saw no complications for Nordea from common European banking regulation and supervision, even though Nordea has operations in Finland, which is a member of the euro area, and in other Nordic countries, including Sweden, which don't belong to the common currency.

Sweden will eventually join the common regulatory and supervisory framework, Mr. Clausen said. However, the framework has to be "constructed in the right way for the non-euro countries," he said.

Mr. Clausen expected that in a year's time the European Banking Authority will have made considerable progress in writing common rules for banks and the European Central Bank in building mechanism for implementing those rules.

Write to Juhana Rossi at juhana.rossi@dowjones.com

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