Hansapank                     NEWS RELEASE                      05/12/2003



BOARD MEMBER RAUL PARUSK TO RESIGN FROM HANSABANK



As of June 1st Hansabank Group board member Raul Parusk will leave the

bank.



Parusk presented his letter of resignation from board member position

to Hansabank Council on May 12; the Council will convene on May 27.

According to Parusk he feels that after five years he now needs to put

himself to the test outside Hansabank. "I am grateful for the

opportunities and challenges, which have made my work in Hansabank

very interesting during these years."



Indrek Neivelt, CEO of Hansabank Group said that Parusk’s resignation

means a loss of a good banker and experienced top manager: "The

organization highly values Raul as a leader and he has an excellent

understanding about banking". He has played an important role in

uniting Hansapank and Hoiupank in Estonia and more recently LTB and

Hansabankas in Lithuania. After the successful integration of Hansa-

LTB into the Group it became difficult to find equally challenging

projects for Raul."



Anders Sahlén, Chairman of the Council of Hansabank: "Raul Parusk´s

resignation is indeed a loss for us. Raul has a remarkable talent to

manage complex projects and great challenges as was demonstrated by

his leadership in the merger of Hansa-LTB. While I very much regret

his departure, I recognize that such capacity as his must also come to

use in even larger and wider contexts. We will hear a lot about Raul

Parusk in years ahead."



Raul Parusk has been working in Hansabank since 1998 and is a board

member since 2000. While working as head of retail banking in Estonia

Parusk united the retail banking teams of merged Hansapank and

Hoiupank. During 2000-2001 he worked as managing director of Hansabank

Estonia and in spring 2001 was one of the initiators of the Look@World

project, aimed at increasing Estonia’s competitiveness by boosting

Internet usage. After the privatisation of Lithuanian Savings Bank

(LTB) in the spring of 2001 Parusk became the head of LTB integration

project and Chairman of the Council of the merged Hansa-LTB. For the

past six months he has been responsible for Group’s strategic

development projects.





Mart Tõevere

Head of investor relations

+372 6131 569