Turns out that the currency loans which have rocked Icelandic society for years were illegal after all. Of all the royal mess created and sustained by the Icelandic political elite, the whole affair ranks amongst the absolutely worst. On the ground level amongst the public, lives have been lost, future plans have been destroyed, people [...]

Whatever happened to the boring old Nordic state of Iceland? Protesters and police are now clashing outside the Central Bank. DV reports that celebrated singer Ellen Kristjansdottir is in the emergency room at the National Hospital after the police pushed her away. Another protester Gretar Eiriksson also clashed with police as these photos from DV [...]

Lately I have heard a lot of Icelanders say that the consumers should have the benefit of the doubt when making contracts with financial institutions. They are talking about the currency basket loans. I agree with them. But I have also heard a lot of Icelanders, and in some cases the same people who maintain [...]

The Supreme Court of Iceland‘s ruling has thrown the Icelandic household debt pickle into an almighty pickle-feast. The Court ruled that the currency loans which many Icelandic housholds had borrowed at their chosen financial institution for car loans and mortgages were illegal. According to Icelandic law, it is illegal to tie loan contracts to indexes [...]

It is clear as dayligth that the political and financial elites which control the “four parties” decided early in the economic collapse to sacrifice the indebted households in the country. This was done while a fortress was erected around owner of capital and the criminals who bankrupted the country. Most things indicate that the politicians [...]

Remember this man. He is one of the faces of Iceland who has been cast aside by his society. The District Court of Reykjavik yesterday declared that the borrower of a currency loan was responsible for paying his loan fully, even if it had doubled in one year. The Court really had few other options, [...]

Last month Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s commissioner for economic affairs, highlighted foreign-currency mortgages as the sort of danger that the newly formed European Systemic Risk Board would be looking for. More succinct is the verdict of a senior official at Austria’s financial regulator: “We don’t want millions of people acting like little hedge funds.” From [...]

Charlie McCreevy, the European Union’s internal market commissioner, told a conference on responsible lending in Brussels on Thursday that the difficulties that had arisen after domestic customers were lured into taking out mortgages denominated in other currencies were “a big concern”. He confirmed that the Commission wanted to introduce “specific and penal” capital requirements on [...]

So what is the bank going to do? Atli Steinn Gudmundsson, a journalist at visir.is and Bylgjan stopped paying off his mortgage in March. “I would have to be a CEO of a large company to manage all those payments. It came to the point where I saw no sense in continuing to pay” he [...]

  A storm is brewing in Iceland. Homeowners have waited since October for words from the governments of Geir Haarde and then Johanna Sigurdardottir on how the state is going to tackle their problems.  They are still waiting and they are getting angrier every day.  The thing is that pretty much all home loans in [...]