Finland’s Saldo Bank commences operations in Sweden

Finnish neobank known as Salso Bank recently managed to officially expand into Sweden and commence operations in the country. The bank is offering interest rates of as much as 5% for a year’s deposit, beating all local competition.

Despite the fact that Saldo Bank is Finnish in origin, it is headquartered in Lithuania, where the core of its banking operations takes place. There, the bank is supervised by the country’s central bank, the Bank of Lithuania.

Meanwhile, Saldo also has a technology development center which is located in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.

Saldo Bank sees rapid expansion

It is worth noting that Salso is a young bank, which was only established in 2021. After that, it opened for business in Finland in October 2023, with the goal to take on established, traditional banks by offering extremely competitive interest rates.

Now, only a few months later, it decided to do the same in Sweden. Saldo Bank intends to attract customers with interest rates of up to 5% on fixed-term accounts, which exceeds the next-best offer on the Swedish market, which is 4.4%.

The bank’s CEO, Jarkko Maensivu, stated that the bank’s opinion is that interest paid on the fixed-term accounts has been to low for too long. Interest rates paid to the banks’ customers should, at the very least, reflect the market interest rates. In other words, Maensivu and his company seek to increase fairness in borrowing.

The maximum amount of a fixed-term deposit currently sits at SEK 900,000. Meanwhile, any funds deposited into these accounts are subject to deposit protection. The bank’s policy is that any deposits accrued will be directed toward its lending business.

Speaking of the bank’s expansion to Sweden, Maensivu said that Saldo intends to grow in the country and use local funds to expand its loan portfolio in Sweden.

Banking services continue to evolve

Saldo Bank’s rise can be traced back to its business practices, which are clearly favored by the customers. With more options provided by challenger banks, the transaction banking sector started experiencing a significant shift driven by customer demand.

Evolving demand, coupled with regulatory changes and growing competition, led to a much more competitive market which is now shared between traditional banks and neobanks. With even fintech firms now competing for a share of this market, the available options and offerings are likely to become even more diverse.

Customers seek reliability, convenience, and above all, transparency. This is something that traditional banks have been denying for a long time, and more modern alternatives such as Saldo Bank decided to satisfy this demand. This led to situations where a foreign bank can enter a new market and quickly become a dominant force within, which is something that Saldo is counting on in Sweden.