Swedish bank SEB Q3 net profit below forecast, pauses share buybacks

STOCKHOLM, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Swedish banking group SEB reported third-quarter net earnings below market expectations on Thursday and said it was pausing share buybacks due to continued loan growth and temporarily higher capital requirements.

• SEB's net profit fell to 7.50 billion Swedish crowns ($758.70 million) from a year-ago 7.68 billion, below the 7.91 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG

• "Net financial income was negatively impacted by muted client activity and a challenging market-making environment for the fixed income, foreign exchange and commodities business," acting CEO Jonas Ahlstrom said

• Quarterly net interest income totalled 10.88 billion crowns versus 10.54 billion a year ago and a mean forecast of 10.97 billion

• SEB said net financial income, which includes trading and is subject to sharper quarterly swings, fell to 1.12 billion crowns from 1.77 billion a year ago

• Sweden's financial watchdog said earlier this month that SEB will temporarily be subject to higher capital requirements due to Internal Ratings-Based (IRB) model deficiencies. The new measure increases SEB's core tier one capital requirement by approximately 10 billion crowns

• SEB said costs are expected to come in below the 2026 full year cost target by approximately 500-600 million crowns

($1 = 9.8853 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard, editing by Essi Lehto)