Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Finland: Arsenal, Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

Following a large-scale deregulation of the financial sector during the 1980s and the subsequent massive credit expansion, a banking crisis in Finland caused a sharp contraction in the economy in the early 1990s. One of the key policy responses to the crisis was the creation of an asset management company called Arsenal in 1992. The original purpose of Arsenal was to absorb, manage, and liquidate the bad assets of the Savings Bank of Finland (an entity created by the government-forced merger of 41 of the country’s 81 savings banks). During the following years, Arsenal expanded to become a group of …