Skandinaviska Banken, literally the Scandinavian Bank, was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 bank founded in Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, 1864. Its foundation coincided with the political aspirations of the Scandinavian movement, which sought to unite Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 and Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 into a single kingdom. Even if these aspirations came to naught, there was a Scandinavian Monetary Union

Scandinavian Monetary Union

The Scandinavian Monetary Union was a monetary union formed by Sweden and Denmark on May 5, 1873, by fixing their currencies against gold at par to each other...

, with a common currency

Swedish krona

The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...

, and a union between Sweden and Norway, that the bank potentially would be able to exploit.

The original name of the bank had been Skandinaviska Kreditaktiebolaget, or Scandinavian Credit Ltd., and was only later changed. Even if the label Scandinavian was kept in the name the venture remained essentially a Swedish bank

Bank

A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

, albeit one of the largest until it merged with Stockholms Enskilda Bank

Stockholms Enskilda Bank

Stockholms Enskilda Bank, sometimes called Enskilda banken or SEB, was a Swedish bank, founded in 1856 by André Oscar Wallenberg as Stockholm's first private bank...

 in 1972 to form Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB is a Swedish financial group for corporate customers, institutions and private individuals with headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden. Its activities comprise mainly banking services, but SEB also carries out significant life insurance operations and also owns Eurocard...

.

See also: Swedish krona

Swedish krona

The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...