Nordea Bank AB provides banking, asset management, and insurance products and services to the personal and corporate customers in the Nordic and Baltic Sea region. The company primarily offers various bank-to-bank services, which include accounts, payments, and clearing services in various currencies; trade finance services, such as advising on hedging, market conditions, finance practice, and routines for document processing in export and import transactions; export finance services, including short-term discounting of receivables, forfeiting, ECA backed export credits, supplier and buyer credits, and leasing and structured export finance; project finance services that arrange financing and guarantee packages for large-scale projects, such as power plants, pulp mills, and telecommunication networks; inter-bank trading activities; and custody services. It also develops and markets various investment funds comprising equity, fixed income, mixed funds, and hedge funds, as well as involves in investment management business. In addition, Nordea Bank offers cash management services; corporate finance services, including financial advice in connection with equity issues, initial public offerings, privatizations, and merger and acquisition transactions; life insurance and pensions products; individual private banking services to personal customers and medium-sized institutions; risk management services; securities services; and various specialized financial services. As of December 31, 2007, Nordea Bank operated 1,300 branches and call centers. The company was founded in 1820 and is based in Stockholm, Sweden.