At the beginning of April, E24 broke the news that Sparebanken Vest had applied to the Norwegian Patent and Trademark Office for the rights to the name “Sparebanken Norge”.
To FinansWatch, Sparebanken Vest’s CEO, Jan Erik Kjerpeseth, denies that the application for the brand name has anything to do with the collaboration around the Frendegruppen.
– Sparebanken Norge has nothing to do with the Frende collaboration. It is about Sparebanken Vest, and the bank’s strategy going forward, says Kjerpeseth.
He says that he believes there will be changes in the Norwegian banking sector, and that “Sparebanken Norge” is a step on the way to meeting the changes in a good way.
– We believe that a lot will happen in the banking sector in the future, which means that we are open about the development of the bank further. We see that many people are moving to Oslo. It is not certain that our geography will be the same in five years as it is today. It’s about setting yourself up for an everyday life that we believe will be different in the savings bank sector than it is today.
The CEO explains that the Frende collaboration is primarily about each individual bank deciding on its own future.
– As I said, we believe there will be changes. We will be positioned there. What you asked about is only a small slice of it. We will set ourselves ambitious goals. It is not certain that we will settle for just Bulder either.
– We have no concrete plans yet, and are still in an early phase. The most important thing is that we do not take initiatives that dilute the return on equity. We are satisfied that we have managed to build Bulder, while at the same time delivering on return on equity. We could double both employees and investment in Bulder and lower the return on equity target, but we don’t. Regardless of the investment, it will be within that framework that we can deliver on our goals. We will build stone on stone, he says.
Tags: Rejects Sparebanken Norge application linked Frende collaboration
