• Swedish banks ignore EU bonus guidelines
• Swedish bankers threaten to go on strike • Swedish banks make ‘too easy money’

Sweden's main trade union for employees in the financial sector said Tuesday it will take industrial actions over the wages and employment conditions of its 30,000 members.

From March 5 the union will a block all overtime and additional hours in banks represented by the employer's organization. It will also stage a blockade against all forms of recruitment as well as a prohibition of foreign working missions.

"The move is designed so that third parties will not be affected", Ulrika Boëthius, negotiation manager and first vice chairman at the Financial Sector Union of Sweden, said in a statement. "Our goal is to get a new contract with reasonable conditions for our members".

The Banking Institutions' Employer Organisation (Bankinstitutens Arbetsgivareorganisation, BAO) -- representing more or less all Swedish banks -- said later the same day it was open to reopen discussions.

Last week the union said that talks with employer's organization broke down because of differing views on the level of the wage increases and that a conflict was looming nearer.

Swedish banks' profit in 2010 was over 50 billion kronor ($7.8 billion), after loan losses and taxes. The union demands a wage increase of 3 percent of its members, which would cost the banks some 600 million kronor.

Sweden's robust economic recovery helped the Scandinavian country’s for biggest banks – Nordea, Handelsbanken, SEB and Swedbank -- beat forecasts in the fourth quarter. Nordic banks have bounced back from the financial downturn quickly relative to their European peers, thanks to robust economic growth, early moves to raise capital and improved loan books in crisis-hit areas such as the Baltics.

Swedish banks and financial services companies are ignoring EU guidelines on awarding bonuses, according to a report published Monday by the financial regulator. Sweden's Financial Markets Minister Peter Norman blasted the sector in a separate statement. “The authority needs to implement further measures, if needed, to make sure bonuses in the financial sector don’t act as a driving force for greed and increased risk-taking,” he said.