OREANDA-NEWS. November 21, 2007. In January next year, Lithuania’s major commercial bank SEB Vilniaus Bankas will complete its re-branding process started more than two years ago – since the start of 2008, the bank's name will be SEB Bankas. Today, this has been approved of by the bank's shareholders meeting. Also, it has been envisaged to change the names of the bank's subdivisions and its subsidiary companies.

“Over seventeen years of its activities, SEB Vilnius Bankas has consolidated its leader position in the Lithuanian banking market, has gained customer trust, is known and visible. For seven years already the bank has been member of financial group SEB, therefore, our aim is that our customers perceive us not only as a strong local bank, but also as a member of leading international group,“ said Audrius Юiugюda, President of SEB Vilniaus Bankas. He maintained that changing of the name is a natural and planned step in the development of SEB Vilniaus Bankas that consolidates the bank's membership in one of the largest international financial groups in Northern Europe. “Each strategic change has been consistently implemented since the very start of the process of integration with the SEB Group, therefore, this time the re-branding is a step of a more technical character”, said Audrius Юiugюda.

Officially, the new name will become effective after registration of the amended Articles of  Association of the bank with the Legal Persons Register. It is planned that the bank will change its name at the end of January. At the same time, the bank's subsidiary companies should also be re-branded, and their names will be, respectively:  SEB Gyvybлs Draudimas, SEB Investicijш Valdymas, SEB Lizingas. Two more subsidiary companies of the bank active on an international scale, i.e. its venture capital company and investment banking services company, changed their names some time earlier, and now their names are: SEB Enskilda and SEB Venture Capital. The name of SEB VB Nekilnojamasis Turtas (‘Real Estate’) will not be changed, because, as it was announced earlier, it is planned to sell the company after the completion of the procedures in connection with the sales deal of the real estate controlled by the SEB Group in Lithuania.

After re-branding, there will be no changes in the other requisite information, i.e. its address, legal person’s code, VAT payor code) of the bank or its subsidiary companies. All the agreements, accounts and cards will remain effective. Re-branding will involve a relevant change in the bank's business style attributes: its logotype, signboards at its subdivisions and ATMs. It is planned to change the signboards at subdivisions before April the 1st.

Next year, re-branding is envisaged also in other the SEB Group banks in the Baltic countries:  SEB Unibanka in Latvia and SEB Ьhispank in Estonia will also be SEB Banks.
The SEB Group, which has a 99.7 per cent stake in SEB Vilnius Bankas, is the leading Northern European financial group. It provides banking services to nearly 400 thousand companies and institutions and to nearly 5 million private individual customers. SEB has its representative offices in Northern European companies and in the Baltic States, in Poland, Ukraine, Russia and Germany, and via its international network it is represented in another 10 countries worldwide. The Group has a wide – 600 customer service subdivisions – network, and its staff numbers 20 thousand individuals.

Previous name     New name

SEB Vilniaus Bankas    SEB Bankas
SEB Enskilda     SEB Enskilda
SEB VB Gyvybлs Draudimas  SEB Gyvybлs Draudimas
SEB VB Investicijш Valdymas  SEB Investicijш Valdymas
SEB VB Lizingas     SEB Lizingas
SEB VB Nekilnojamasis Turtas**  -
SEB VB Rizikos Kapitalo Valdymas*** SEB Venture Capital

* SEB Enskilda“, previously SEB Vilfima, changed its name in January 2007.
** SEB VB Nekilnojamasis Turtas, as it was previously informed, is planned for sales.
*** SEB VB Rizikos Kapitalo Valdymas changed its name on October 30th.