The large banks in Sweden have a very strong position and everyone in Sweden in reality needs to have an account with one of them, niche players don't offer all services customers need. Many have additional banking for special needs such as stock investments, mortgage and/or high interest accounts depending on current market conditions. Quite many think it is convenient to only have one bank, and not move around savings to optimize interest rates, which is one of the reasons the large banks can make significant profits. All the big banks try to make good return on equity, Swedbank is aiming at ROE=15% (2023 18.3%).

Competition from niche players moving from mortgage to deposits

The higher interest rates on savings accounts and cost of bonds for banks on the capital market will also make it very hard for smaller banks without low interest accounts, i.e. salary accounts etc to compete with cheap mortgage. Competition from niche players will increase on high yielding deposit accounts.

Baltic scandal

There is a big uncertainty around potential fines from USA related to the Baltic scandal. If this gets finalized at reasonably low levels this will be positive for the share price.

The bank seems to be making stable profits going forward. Income for 2023Q4 was up, but costs and tax where up more vs 2023Q3, EPS2023=30SEK up from EPS2022=19SEK. Interest rates will probably be declining during 2024, which should lower NII but some growth and higher mortgage margins could balance this. My high level guess is EPS2024=28SEK, slightly lower than EPS2023.

There are apparent risks with Swedbank, related to the Baltic scandal. But since this is known I think it is reflected in the price. Since there has been quite a lot of issues many larger investors/institutions will not invest in Swedbank.