OREANDA-NEWS. On 30 June 2008 was announced, that Hansabanka, evolving in line with the concept of a universal bank, has decided to start operating in Latvian non-life insurance market and set up a non-life insurance company branch.

The non-life insurance services will be delivered by the Hansabank Group’s Estonian insurance company branch in Latvia, and documents will soon be filed with Estonian and Latvian financial and capital market supervisors.

“This step is in line with both the concept of Hansabanka as a universal bank and our goal to provide even better customer experience and set an example of premium service for Europe, starting to operate under a single Swedbank brand in the autumn”, says Mвris Avotiтр, the Chairman of the Board of Hansabanka. “Hansabanka’s experience, infrastructure, advanced IT system, focus on service and the resources of the whole Swedbank Group in service development build our platform for ensuring quality in developing offers most suitable for clients.”

Initially, the non-life insurance company branch will offer comprehensive car insurance and property insurance (for private customers), with the product offering to be expanded in the future. The branch is planned to start operating in the first half of 2009.

Hansabanka is a part of the Swedbank Group – one of the largest financial institutions in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Swedbank Group has 9 million retail clients and 600 thousand corporate clients. In addition to Nordic and Baltic countries, Swedbank is also represented in Russia, Ukraine, Luxembourg, Spain, USA, China, and Japan. In December 2007, the Group had roughly 100 billion lats in assets.