Nordic Banks’ Internationalization Process and Their Effectiveness in the Digital World

Abstract: In the last couple of decades internationalization of firms has increased all over the world, and banks are not an exception. Different factors are impacting the decision of entering a new market and digitalization is certainly one of the main factors contributing to the internationalization process. Hence, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate what the internationalization process looks like for banks originating from the Nordic region and the impact of digitalization on the process as well as how digitalization impacts the banks' effectiveness. The data were acquired using a qualitative multiple case study of five leading banks originating from the Nordic region through semi-structured interviews. Afterward, the collected data was discussed in the literature review chapter in the analysis chapter to detect similarities and differences.  The findings in this thesis revealed that the factors that are evaluated are both internal and external before entering a market and that the significance of each factor varies depending on what bank it is. Additionally, the role of digitalization has also played a big part in how the process of the banks looks and how the current process of internationalizing is done. Instead of expanding which has been the previous focus for these leading banks, the focus has the recent years switched to withdrawing from foreign markets with their physical presence to focusing on offering their services from their home markets and on digital investments. Along with how digitalization has affected Nordic banks' internationalization process, this thesis also presents how effectiveness and assessment are impacted by digitalization.