Hansapank                     NEWS RELEASE                      03/29/2004



ESTABLISHING A JOINT VENTURE



Hansabank and the Finnish IT-company TietoEnator have signed a letter

of intent for establishing a joint venture.



In 2003 Hansabank arranged a tender for outsourcing the maintenance of

the bank’s POS, ATM and PC networks in Estonia. The best offer was

made by TietoEnator who already has similar agreements with more than

40 companies.

Hansabank Group CIO, Olli Heinonen, "For the bank the benefit will

come out of improved efficiency and lower maintenance expenses. The

joint venture is able to leverage its cost base through economies of

scale, as it will start to provide similar services also to other

companies."



The preliminary plan is to sign the final agreement in July 2004. The

joint venture is expected to start operations from August 2004.



Additional information:

Olli Heinonen

Chief Information Officer, Hansabank, +372 613 1304

Hanno Hussar

Head of IT operations, Hansabank, +372 613 1369



Leo Höykinpuro

Vice President, TietoEnator Processing & Network, +358 400 445 596





Hansabank (www.hansagroup.com) is the largest financial group in the

Baltic countries, providing financial intermediation services to

around 3.5 million customers. Established in 1991, the Group today has

total assets close to 6 billion euros, controlling over 1/3 of the

Baltic market. Hansabank is focused on providing universal banking

services in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Hansabank Group employs

6,000 employees. Hansabank share is listed on the main list of HEX

Tallinn (www.hex.ee/english) since 1996.



TietoEnator is one of the leading architects in building a more

efficient information society and the largest IT services company in

the Nordic countries. TietoEnator specialises in consulting,

developing and hosting its customers’ business operations in the

digital economy. The Group’s services are based on a combination of

deep industry-specific expertise and latest information technology.

TietoEnator has close to 14,000 experts in more than 20 countries.





Mart Tõevere

Head of Communications and IR

+372 613 1569