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Fifty-Year Mystery Of Iceland’s First Bank Robbery Solved
A man involved in what is thought to be Iceland’s first bank robbery walked into a police station and confessed to the crime, police report in a Facebook post. The robbery took place early in 1975 and was relatively small in scale…
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Arion Bank Seeks Merger With Íslandsbanki
The board of Arion Bank has announced its interest in initiating merger talks with Íslandsbanki, reports mbl.is. A formal letter has been sent to the chairman and CEO of Íslandsbanki, expressing the bank’s vision for a combined financial institution. In a statement…
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Poll: Most Icelanders Against Selling Off Public Ownership Of Banks
The results of a new poll from Zenter show that most Icelanders want the government to maintain or increase its ownership of two of the country’s major banks, Fréttablaðið reports. Currently, the Icelandic public own two banks, with the government owning 100%…
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Increased Push To Privatise Iceland’s Banks, Evoking Pre-Crash Memories
There is a growing push to privatise Landsbankinn and Íslandsbanki, two banks currently majority owned by the government. There is, however, no pending legislation or parliamentary discussion to do so, and the shady operations of the then-fully privatised banks was found to…
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Increasingly Difficult For Icelandic Kids To Pay Off Their Loans
According to a recent report from The Icelandic Debtors’ Ombudsman, the number of young people looking to get assistance to be bailed out of personal loans has been dangerously increasing in the past few years. The Icelandic Debtors’ Ombudsman is a governmental…
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Crisis? What Crisis? The Icelandic Tourism Industry Teeters
In late June, Icelandair reported that it had laid off 20% of its pilots. A few weeks later, it reported an 11% increase in passengers from the same time last year. What gives? Ever since the economic collapse of 2008, people have…
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Missing In Iceland: Pawn Shops
In a lot of major metropolitan areas around the world, if you’re hurting for some pocket money and you need it now, you can typically take anything of value down to your local pawn shop. DVD players, bicycles, rifles—whatever it is, they’ll…
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So What’s This I Hear About Bankers Defunding Poets?
In 2011, a teacher named Þórarinn Hannesson established the Poetry House (“Ljóðasetur”) in Siglufjörður, a small fishing hamlet up north. Its operations have been mostly funded by the founder himself, with the help of various private donors. The largest of those, a…
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Banks Did Not Fall In 2008, They Were Pushed, Says Professor
Professor Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson claims that the reason all three major Icelandic banks, Glitnir, Landsbanki and Kaupþing, collapsed in October 2008, was the hostility of other nations towards Iceland, notably that of the UK and the US. Hannes Hólmsteinn introduced these conclusions…
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A Successful Solstice
Reykjavík’s first Secret Solstice festival brought 10,000 people to Laugardalur for 72 hours of fun in the sun. With 150 artists performing on five stages, it was impossible to take it all in, and judging by all of the inspired dance moves…
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Shadow Boxing With The Banks
During a single week in early October, 154 Icelandic families quietly defaulted on their mortgages and had their homes put up for forced state auctions, or foreclosure sales. They aren’t the first families to be threatened with the loss of their homes…
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Sour Grapes Over Icelandic Loans
After the Icelandic Supreme Court invalidated loans indexed to foreign currencies, the banks and regulators have struggled to determine what interest the borrowers should pay—the stated interest in the loan agreements or the much higher inflation-indexed loans typical to Icelandic contracts. The…
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Welcome to the Economic Model, Friend
Pissed that you just paid ten dollars for a beer? Thirty dollars for a CD? So are the people who have to charge you that much, or watch the smile turn to consternation and eventually cranky 12-year-old-style angst over the exchange rate.…