"Swedes have also been easier to wean off expensive cash and human contact than other Europeans, thanks to their digital savvy. And the Swedish banking bust of the 1990s instilled a wariness of lax lending in local bankers long before the global financial crisis. Nonetheless, Swedbank still lent too freely to borrowers in the Baltics, Russia and Ukraine in the early 2000s. Some 20% of loans in those countries had soured by 2009 (compared to 3% for the bank as a whole). [..] It promptly sold its Russian and Ukrainian business and wrote off bad loans in the Baltics. Only 0.4% of its current lending is in default. This experience made Swedbank the conservative, slightly boring bank that it is today. It says it has no ambition to expand to new markets or to trim its capital. It avoids risky assets, preferring those with solid collateral, such as property. Any new business must have a risk-adjusted return of at least 20% to be considered worthwhile. In Sweden it tries to steer clear of lending to industries exposed to private consumption, which tends to suffer in downturns. Much of its corporate lending goes to farming, forestry and housing co-operatives, which it considers safer. [..] Because Swedes don’t keep much money in the bank, Swedish banks rely heavily on wholesale funding, making them vulnerable to investors’ mood swings. And Swedbank’s impressive risk-adjusted capital ratio is largely the result of the very favourable treatment that mortgages in rich countries still receive under the Basel banking rules compared to other types of lending. [..] Swedish house prices, and thus mortgage lending, are swelling at a tremendous pace, generating fears of a bubble."