The accelerated pace in uptake of artificial intelligence (AI) and digital technologies by Nordic financial institutions is set to gain momentum as the region’s leading banks and insurance groups launch programmes to streamline.
Recognising the dangers and consequences for their members in a rapidly changing financial services landscape, labour unions across the Nordic region are engaging in negotiations with sector employers.
The rapid growth and advance of online digital banks in the region has sharpened the urgency among financial services providers, and particularly long-established high street banks, to pursue more expansive technology-led restructuring projects that will help these institutions compete against the fintech disrupters.
The rise of fintech-owned digital banks provides a real competitive threat to traditional Nordic players, said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Stockholm-headquartered Klarna.
“The parallel growth in digital banks and the embrace of AI will play their part in reducing the huge profits that the long-established Nordic banks have made in the past,” he said. “The upsurge in AI will unquestionably affect the labour market. Organisations need to prepare for the AI shock that is already taking place.”
Niche digital banks, largely owned by fintech groups, have emerged as the principal force driving competition and change
Lunar Bank, the Copenhagen-based boutique digital bank with operations across the Nordic countries, is among the growing number of fintech upstarts taking customers and market share away from traditional financial institutions in the region.
‘Turbocharging’ growth
Established in 2015, Lunar has raised over €540m to grow its online digital banking business. The bank intends to use AI to “turbocharge” growth in Nordic markets that are experiencing a financial services revolution, said Ken Klausen, Lunar’s CEO. “For Lunar, it’s important we invest in the technologies we need,” he said. “AI has the potential to turbocharge opportunities and growth. We believe in an agentic future, where platforms and functions that users have today are agents.”
For leading Nordic financial services groups like Danske Bank, insurer If Forsikring and pension group ATP, the most immediate concern with long-term implications is that the smaller, leaner and more cost-efficient niche digital banks, left uncontested, will continue to “poach” more customers and leave traditional financial institutions with a diminishing market share going forward.
In Denmark, and in response to the fintech threat, insurance group Tryg has started to transform its operating business model and IT infrastructure to compete.
Tryg launched an ambitious investment plan in January to digitise all core areas of its Nordic financial services operations. A key part of this plan will involve the establishment of a Nordic AI hub to serve all branches of its activities across the region.
If Forsikring, the Nordic insurance subsidiary of Finnish parent Sampo, plans to lay off around 100 employees in
Fast-tracking digitisation to core areas of If Forsikring’s operations remains a critical component to building a business model that boosts its ability to compete against “new upstarts and traditional players in the marketplace”, said Morten Thorsrud, If Forsikring’s managing director.
“We are investing in a robust way in both modern digital solutions and a higher level of online-based customer services,” he said. “Over half of our product sales to private customers were made online via our web shop in 2025, and over 50% of private customers filed injury claims online in that year. We operate in a market with traditional and new fintech players. Using digitisation as a tool to drive growth is not just desirable for us, it’s essential.”
Layoffs
The advance towards leaner and more tech-driven banks and insurance providers is expected to result in up to 5,000 layoffs by Nordic financial services groups in 2026.
ATP, the Danish pension insurance group, linked its decision in March to shed 110 administrative jobs to a scaled-up capital investment programme to deliver major improvements to digital functions and services throughout the group.
If Forsikring plans to lay off around 100 administrative staff during the first half of 2026, while Danske Bank is set to reduce the number of staff working in its retail operations across Nordic “home markets” Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland by up to 430 by the end of the year.
“We are faced with much stronger competition in the marketplace and tougher choices,” said Carsten Egeriis, Danske Bank’s CEO. “We either adopt the transforming AI and digital technologies that our rivals – including the fintechs in our space – are using, or risk falling behind. As part of the bank’s wider development, we have raised investments in key technologies to ensure we evolve into a more digital and cost-efficient bank that can compete in the rapidly changing market for financial services.”
AI and digital technologies will continue to transform the “shape and character” of banking and how financial services are developed and delivered, said Magnus Lodefalk, a leading AI expert at both the Örebro University and the Ratio Research Institute in Sweden.
“AI will change how organisations hire and invest in their operations,” he said. “It will have a growing influence in job replacement and will also allow development for new roles and career paths. It will help determine what types of skills will be less or more important. AI will certainly affect employment, as well as salaries, business and economic development. With any new technology, what replaces one job might open the door for a new area of skilled labour.”
The rise in generative and other forms of AI is already having a significant impact on job prospects for postgraduate programmers, said Joel Junros, a senior analyst at the Swedish Agency for Higher Vocational Education (Yrkeshögskolan).
“Our latest research indicates that fewer are finding work as programmers once they graduate,” he said. “We are now seeing a reduction in training places. In 2022, 90% of those who studied programming at applied science universities in Sweden found jobs. Three years later, in 2025, the proportion dropped to 69% and is falling. The increasing use of AI is having a direct effect on hiring for basic programming jobs.”
The need for financial services groups to embrace a broader cross-border approach to their business models and customer-focused IT needs is reflected in Tryg’s Nordic AI hub roll-out. It is tasked with accelerating the development, delivery and implementation of AI services to Tryg’s group-wide operations across Nordic markets.
Tryg has integrated the AI hub as a critical part of the company’s 2027 development strategy, as it will centralise Tryg’s AI competencies while creating a strong team of data scientists and engineers, said the unit’s director, Maria Wichmann Lück.
“Our clear ambition is to move AI from isolated projects to scaled solutions that create real value for customers and business,” she said. “The Nordic AI hub will help us to attract and develop the best talent. This is crucial to driving the AI solutions of the future. The expert AI community we are building will share knowledge and experience. It will help us scale AI solutions across