Bachelor's thesis (Turku University of Applied Sciences) Degree Program in Business Management

8 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH 
8.1 Preface 
As the heading suggests, this chapter is primarily aimed at a thorough 
observation of investment activities of major financial institutions whose 
operations happen to be located in Finland: Nordea Bank (Nordea Pankki); 
Liedon Säästöpankki Turku (Savings Bank); Osuuspankki (cooperative bank); 
Handelsbanken (a Swedish bank with 44 branches in Finland); Sampo Pankki 
(a representative branch of Danske Bank). 
While having briefly touched upon this fact in the second Chapter of current 
Thesis work, it is more than just important to additionally point out that the 
analytical part of the research has been mostly supplemented by data and 
observations acquired in several ways.
To be more specific, initial research plan presumed that a simple interview 
questionnaire could be considered a sufficient way of obtaining required 
information. While on some level this assumption proved to be true, in the 

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TURKU UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES THESIS | Artem Vorobyev 
majority of the cases the necessary figures could only be acquired through 
direct access to financial reports and other investment statistics published 
annually by the above mentioned participants of financial markets. 
In particular, out of five representatives of major banks that had been contacted 
in an attempt of conducting the interview, only one person has agreed to 
participate in the survey 
– the vice managing director of Liedon Säästöpankki.
Others, while having considered the possibility, have declined to take part in the 
research, due to various reasons, such as: inability to find the right person who 
would possess sufficient knowledge concerning the bank’s investment 
operations that would allow completing the survey; refusal to shed light on the 
matters that under certain circumstances could be considered business secrets. 
Here it would be wise to draw your attention to the fact that, even though the 
primary concern of the interview centred around revealing certain details of 
investment operations of commercial banks, obtaining confidential information 
has never been regarded as a possible objective.
The nature of collected data could easily be related to general statistical 
information that banks, as financial institutions that are subject to public 
overview, are obliged to publish in their annual financial reports.
Therefore, information concerning Nordea, Osuuspankki, Handelsbanken and 
Sampo Pankki has been obtained through careful examination of both regional 
(Finland) and international annual financial publications, links to which could be 
found among other bibliographical sources. 
8.2 Motivations behind the empirical observations 
Still, before proceeding with the analysis of collected data, it might make 
considerable sense to give a brief overview of the reasoning that stipulates this