Thomas Murray rates Danske Bank for Swedish and Danish Domestic Custody

LONDON – Thomas Murray, the specialist custody rating, risk management and research firm has awarded Danske Bank A/S a public Swedish domestic custody rating to complement its existing Danish domestic custody rating.

Danske Bank demonstrates a strong Swedish domestic custody offering and has been awarded A+ overall (with a stable outlook). This rating complements the very strong rating of AA- overall that has been awarded for Danske Bank’s Danish custody offering. Danske Bank’s Cash Management rating has been upgraded reflecting product improvements over the past year, together with an upgrade of the Bank’s internal operations rating as a result of the Bank’s continued operational improvements.

Danske Bank has developed an in-house securities lending system. The Bank offers an auto-borrow service for fails coverage on equities, and is currently developing its opportunistic securities lending service for Danish and Swedish securities. The service will be assigned a Thomas Murray rating as Danske Bank’s opportunistic lending service becomes more established during 2007. 

Simon Thomas, CEO and Chief Ratings Officer of Thomas Murray said: “Danske Bank’s very strong custody rating combined with its new Swedish custody rating displays the Bank’s ongoing commitment to provide a Nordic custody solution for its clients. The ability to offer a Nordic solution is likely to become an increasingly important consideration for banks and broker dealers appointing custodians in the region.”

Mogens Søndergaard, Executive Vice President and Head of Transaction Services at Danske Bank said: “This rating confirms Danske Bank’s intention to becoming a major player in the Nordic region as a whole. Since 2002, we have been developing a Nordic region custody offering, supported primarily from our Danish operations centre but with local staff also, and this rating by Thomas Murray attests to the quality of our Swedish and Danish custody product and demonstrates the realisation of our Nordic strategy”

For further information contact:
Simon Thomas / Roger Fishwick       
Thomas Murray   
+44 (0) 207-830-8300
sthomas@thomasmurray.com
rfishwick@thomasmurray.com 

Mogens Søndergaard,
Danske Bank A/S
+45 33-44-00-00
msn@danskebank.dk

Thomas Murray
Thomas Murray is a specialist custody rating, risk management and research firm specialising in the global securities services industry. Thomas Murray was established in 1994. The Company tracks and analyses over 250 custodians globally and monitors the risk of over 100 capital market infrastructures. The Company has a strong position as a provider of public and private ratings and risk assessments on global custodians, domestic custodian banks and capital market infrastructures.
www.thomasmurray.com

Danske Bank A/S
Danske Bank has offered domestic Danish custody since 1985 and Swedish domestic custody since 2003. Danske Bank is the largest Danish domestic custodian in terms of assets under custody and is currently growing its Swedish domestic custody market share. In terms of the Bank’s total assets under custody, the figures increased from DKK 1,065 billion (USD 181.6 billion) in 2000, to DKK 2,252.7 billion (USD 384.1 billion) as at June 30, 2006. Danske Bank has DKK 419 billion (USD 71.4 billion) under custody on behalf of international clients. For Sweden, Danske Bank has DKK 108.4 billion (USD18.5 billion) under custody for all client types. Although a relatively new custody provider to international clients in Sweden, Danske Bank has had a significant presence in the country for some time. Danske Bank is the fifth largest bank in Sweden, and is the largest Bond trader in the market.    
www.danskebank.com

Attachments

Danske Rating 2006

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