Nordea

Is Nordea safe?

Yes. Nordea is a well-capitalised bank with ratings in the AA range, and deposits are covered by Finland's guarantee up to €100,000 per person. Its CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary was 15.7% in June 2026, with ratings of Aa2, AA- and AA from the three big agencies. The blemish is conduct. Danish prosecutors have asked for a record DKK 6.6 billion fine over money laundering controls a decade ago, on top of a $35 million New York penalty in 2024. We score Nordea 74/100, level with ABN AMRO and a little below ING at 75 and Rabobank at 82.

How deposit protection works across the Nordics

Nordea Bank Abp is one Finnish bank with branches in Sweden, Denmark and Norway, not a set of separate national banks. So the Finnish scheme, run by the Financial Stability Authority, is the main guarantee for almost all customers.

Where your account is	Main cover	Extra
Finland	Finnish scheme, €100,000	Higher temporary cover for proceeds from selling your home, for six months
Sweden	Finnish scheme, €100,000 equivalent	Nordea joined the Swedish scheme as a supplement
Denmark	Finnish scheme, €100,000 equivalent	Nordea joined the Danish scheme as a supplement
Norway	Finnish scheme, €100,000	Norwegian fund tops up to NOK 2 million per depositor

The limit is per person per bank, so all your Nordea accounts in one country count together. Nordea's mortgage banks, such as Nordea Kredit and Nordea Hypotek, issue covered bonds and do not take retail deposits.

Capital and ratings

Measure (30 June 2026)	Nordea Group
CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary	15.7%
CET1 requirement	about 13.8%
Leverage ratioLeverage ratioA bank's Tier 1 capital divided by its total exposures, without adjusting for risk. It is a simple backstop to risk-based capital rules.More in the glossary	4.6%
MREL ratio	36.2% of risk exposure
Moody's / S&P / Fitch	Aa2 / AA- / AA

A 1.9-point buffer over the requirement looks slim, but the requirement itself is high: Danish and Finnish authorities add systemic risk buffers and a floor on Finnish mortgage risk weights. In absolute terms 15.7% is above ING at 13.1% and Commerzbank at 14.4%, and the ratings are in the AA range. Net profit was €2.48 billion in the first half of 2026, with a return on equity close to 16%.

Liquidity and covered bonds

Nordea's funding differs from a typical retail bank's. Loans to the public were €357 billion in June 2026, well above deposits of €232 billion, because Danish, Swedish and Norwegian mortgages are mostly financed by covered bonds sold to investors. That market has a long record of staying open in crises. The liquidity coverage ratioLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary was 153% and the net stable funding ratioNet stable funding ratioA bank's stable funding, such as capital and retail deposits, compared with the stable funding its assets need over one year. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary 120.6%, with a €129 billion buffer of cash and central bank-eligible securities. That is comfortable, though lower than at app banks like N26 that lend out little.

The money laundering cases

In August 2024 the New York Department of Financial Services fined Nordea $35 million for failings in its anti-money launderingAnti-money launderingThe rules and checks that stop criminals from moving illegal money through banks, payment firms and crypto exchanges.More in the glossary programme between 2008 and 2019, including at its Baltic and Danish operations, many of them first exposed by the 2016 Panama Papers.

The bigger case is in Copenhagen. Denmark's National Special Crime Unit charged Nordea in July 2024 over its International Branch, which between 2012 and 2015 handled transactions worth more than DKK 26 billion, largely for Russian clients, without the checks the law required. In June 2026 prosecutors asked for a DKK 6.6 billion fine, well above the record set by Danske Bank's 2022 penalty. Nordea says its controls at the time should have been better but that it did not commit a crime, and it had set aside €95 million. We found no verdict by early October 2026.

How to keep your money safe with Nordea

1. Keep deposits within €100,000 per person, or NOK 2 million in Norway. Spreading larger sums across unrelated banks costs nothing.
2. Never share BankID, MitID or Nordea code app confirmations with a caller, however official they sound. Nordea will not ask you to approve a login over the phone.
3. Treat funds and shares in a Nordea custody account as investments: they are not deposits and are protected under the separate investor compensation rules.

How we scored it

Capital and deposit protectionDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary (82 each) are Nordea's strongest factors, backed by AA-range ratings. Liquidity (72) reflects heavier reliance on covered bond markets. Conduct (50) is the weak spot, driven by the unresolved Danish case and the 2024 New York penalty.