Company type | Private (cooperative bank) |
---|---|
Industry | Financial services |
Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland |
Area served | Finland |
Key people | Timo Ritakallio (President and Group Executive Chairman) |
Products | Banking, Insurance |
Revenue | €3.115 billion (2017) [1] |
€1.077 billion (2017) [1] | |
€764 million (2017) [1] | |
Total assets | €137.242 billion (31 December 2017) [1] |
Total equity | €11.121 billion (31 December 2017) [1] |
Number of employees | 12,269 (31 December 2017) [1] |
Subsidiaries | OP Bank Group Central Co-operative, OP Corporate Bank, Pohjola Bank, Helsingin OP Pankki, OP-Kotipankki |
Website | www.op.fi |
OP Financial Group is one of the largest financial companies in Finland. It consists of 180 cooperative banks and their central organization. "OP" stands for "osuuspankki" in Finnish, literally meaning "cooperative bank". The financial group has over 2 million customer-owners, [2] offering retail and commercial banking services all over Finland, as well as insurance services. [3]
In 2014 the group acquired the remainder of the shares of Pohjola Bank and consolidated its services under the OP brand, shortening its name to OP from OP-Pohjola, a name it had used since 2007. [4]
OP's current headquarters are located in Vallila, Helsinki, and opened in 2015.
OP has been designated as a Significant Institution since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank. [5] [6]
The company's predecessor was founded in 1891 when the fire insurance company Palovakuutus-Osakeyhtiö Pohjola commenced its operations. Pohjola Bank was listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange in 1922, being one of the first companies to be listed in Helsinki.
The first local cooperative credit societies were founded in 1902 and received a large loan from the Finnish state the next year. The central organization for cooperatives was founded in 1928 as an ideological organization between local branches. As the business environment has changed and banking regulation has tightened, the central organization has increased its influence on local banks significantly.
In 2005 the central organization of OP Financial Group became a major shareholder of Pohjola Bank, which made the group the largest financial services group in Finland. The remainder of the shares were acquired in 2014.
In 2014 OP announced plans to expand into the health and wellbeing market. It operated a hospital in the Helsinki region. In 2021 it cancelled the plan and sold the hospital. [7]
OP Corporate Bank Plc is the most significant subsidiary of OP Financial Group. [8]
OP Corporate Bank's customers are large companies in Finland. It is responsible for the Baltic business, operating as a bank for large companies and conducting financial services in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. [8] In addition, OP Corporate Bank offers financial services in internationalization. OP Corporate Bank also acts as the OP Financial Group's central bank. [8]
Katja Keitaanniemi has been the President and CEO of OP Corporate Bank since 2018. [9]
Nordea Bank Abp, commonly referred to as Nordea, is a Nordic financial services group operating in northern Europe with headquarters in Helsinki, Finland. The name is a blend of the words "Nordic" and "idea". The bank is the result of the successive mergers and acquisitions of the Finnish, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian banks of Merita Bank, Nordbanken, Unidanmark, and Christiania Bank og Kreditkasse that took place between 1997 and 2001. The Nordic countries are considered Nordea's home market, having finalised the sales of their Polish bank in 2014, Baltic operations in 2019 and completed the exit from Russia in early 2022 following a 2019 decision to close the business there. Nordea is listed on Nasdaq Nordic exchanges in Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Stockholm and Nordea ADR is listed in the US.
Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB, abbreviated SEB, is a Swedish bank headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In Sweden and the Baltic countries, SEB has a full financial service offering. In Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the bank's operations are focused on corporate and investment banking services to corporate and institutional clients. The bank was founded in 1972 by the Swedish Wallenberg family, which is still SEB's largest shareholder through major investment company Investor AB. SEB is the largest Swedish bank by both market capitalisation and total assets.
Sampo Group is a significant Nordic insurance group made up of the parent company Sampo plc, If P&C Insurance Holding Ltd, Danish insurer Topdanmark and British P&C insurer Hastings, all of which are its subsidiaries. The parent company in Helsinki administers the subsidiaries. Sampo Group employs over 13,500 employees. Torbjörn Magnusson is the CEO of Sampo Group. Antti Mäkinen was elected as Chair of the Board of Sampo on 17 May 2023.
Argenta is a bank based in Antwerp, Belgium that also operates in the Netherlands and Luxembourg. It was Belgium's sixth-biggest bank in 2020, after BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC Group, Belfius, ING Group, and Crelan.
Bank of Valletta plc (BOV) is a Maltese bank and financial services company headquartered in Santa Venera. It is the oldest established financial services provider in Malta and one of the largest. As of 2014, the bank had 44 branches, 6 regional business centres, a head office, and a wealth management arm located around the Maltese Islands. It has representative offices in the United Kingdom, Australia, Belgium and Italy.
Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (mutual) or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, members of a mutual usually receive a "windfall" payout, in the form of shares in the successor company, a cash payment, or a mixture of both. Mutualization or mutualisation is the opposite process, wherein a shareholder-owned company is converted into a mutual organization, typically through takeover by an existing mutual organization. Furthermore, re-mutualization depicts the process of aligning or refreshing the interest and objectives of the members of the mutual society.
DZ Bank AG is the second largest bank in Germany by asset size and the central institution for around 800 cooperative banks and their around 8,500 branch offices. Within the German Cooperative Financial Group, which is one of Germany's largest private sector financial service organizations and manages assets of around 1.200 trillion euros, DZ Bank functions both as a central institution and as a corporate and investment bank.
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
S-Bank Plc is a Finnish retail bank and wealth manager. It is owned by SOK Corporation and the regional co-operatives in the S-Group, a Finnish retailing cooperative organisation.
Aktia Bank Plc is a Finnish asset manager, bank and life insurer with offices in the Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Vaasa and Oulu regions.
Bank of Åland Plc is a Finnish commercial bank and banking group with over 700 employees and operations in Åland, Finland and Sweden. The bank was founded in 1919 and was listed on the stock exchange in 1942. Its president and CEO is Peter Wiklöf.
The European Services Forum (ESF) is a lobby group of representatives from the European services sector that promote the liberalisation of international trade in services. It was created in April 1999 in order to give recommendations to the European Commission in the GATS negotiations of the World Trade Organization. Since 2012, the Forum is supporting the negotiations concerning the Trade in Services Agreement.
Groupe BPCE is a major French banking group formed by the 2009 merger of two major retail banking groups, Groupe Caisse d'Épargne and Groupe Banque Populaire. As of 2021, it was France's fourth largest bank, the seventh largest in Europe, and the nineteenth in the world by total assets. It has more than 8,200 branches nationwide under their respective brand names serving nearly 150 million customers. Its wholesale banking subsidiary Natixis, previously a separately listed company, was delisted and came under full ownership of Groupe BPCE in 2021.
The German Cooperative Financial Group is a major cooperative banking network in Germany that includes local banks named Volksbanken and Raiffeisenbanken, the latter in tribute to 19th-century cooperative movement pioneer Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The Cooperative Group represents one of the three "pillars" of Germany's banking sector, the other two being, respectively, the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe of public banks, and the commercial banking sector represented by the Association of German Banks.
Crédit Mutuel is a French cooperative banking group, one of the country's top five banks with over 30 million customers. It traces its origins back to the German cooperative movement inspired by Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen in Alsace–Lorraine under German rule, in the 1880s. Crédit Mutuel was a member of the International Raiffeisen Union (IRU).
Co-operative Bank of Kenya is a commercial bank in Kenya, the largest economy in the East African Community. It is licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya, the central bank and national banking regulator. The bank has introduced Agency banking model and has a deep customer base in Kenya with over 7.5 million accounts as of December 2018. In 2010, the bank was awarded "Best Bank of Kenya" by the London Financial Times due to their excellent growth.
Banque Raiffeisen is a Luxembourgish banking and financial services company. Founded in 1926, it is one of the oldest banks in Luxembourg. The bank is independent from foreign shareholders. It is a member of the International Raiffeisen Union (IRU), which is an association of cooperatives based on the ideas of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen.
Stanbic Holdings Plc, formerly known as CfC Stanbic Holdings Limited, is a financial services organization in Kenya. The Group's headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya, with subsidiaries in Kenya and South Sudan. Stanbic Holdings is a member of the Standard Bank Group, a financial services giant based in South Africa. The institution is licensed and governed by the Central Bank of Kenya, the national banking regulator.
Stanbic IBTC Holdings, commonly referred to as Stanbic IBTC, is a financial service holding company in Nigeria with subsidiaries in Banking, Stock Brokerage, Investment Advisory, Asset Management, Investor Services, Pension Management, TrusteesInsurance Brokerage and life Insurance businesses. The company's newly opened corporate headquarters, Stanbic IBTC Towers, is situated at Walter Carrington Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos. Stanbic IBTC Holdings is a member of the Standard Bank Group, a financial services giant based in South Africa. Standard Bank is Africa's largest banking group ranked by assets and earnings, operations in 20 African countries and 13 countries outside Africa.
Katja Keitaanniemi is the CEO of OP Corporate Bank, which is the most significant subsidiary of OP Financial Group. According to Corporate Finance Institute, OP Corporate Bank is among the top corporate banks in Finland. Keitaanniemi has been on the list of Finland's most powerful female executives by the business weekly Talouselämä in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.