Brussels, 12/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has approved, subject to conditions, the acquisition by Scandinavian banking group Nordea of sole control of Sweden's Postgirot Bank AB, a financial services provider currently owned by Posten AB, the Swedish Post Office. The Nordea Group was formed through successive cross-border mergers of banks in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark, the Baltic region and Poland. In Sweden, Nordea is active in retail and corporate banking and life insurance. The Commission's probe showed that Postgirot has only minor positions in most mainstream banking markets, such as deposits, lending and card services provided to households, SMEs and large corporations. In its original form, the transaction would have given Nordea full control of the Postgirot payment system in addition to its existing significant stake in Bankgirot,; the other main giro payment system in Sweden. Nordea would therefore have had significant influence on both of the main Swedish payment systems. In order to resolve these competition concerns, Nordea has undertaken to reduce its stake in Bankgirot to no more than 10% and to withdraw all representatives from the board of Bankgirot and from other governing bodies; and to withdraw from Privatgirot, a company that provides giro-related technical services in competition with Postgirot.