The head of Iceland’s FME financial regulator says it is still too early to tell if the government will need to provide financial assistance to the banks following the Supreme Court ruling that foreign currency indexed loans are illegal. Read the full story

Jon Asgeir Johannesson and his family owed the Icelandic banks around ISK 300 billion (USD 2.3 billion at today’s rate). His parents owed ISK 60 billion each. Read the full story

Short trading by the banks against the Icelandic krona amounted to around ISK 1,000 billion (USD 7.93 billion at today’s rate) right before the banking collapse in 2008, according to economist Bjarni Kristjansson. Read the full story

The British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is looking into the affairs of the old Icelandic banks and hopes to soon decide whether or not a formal investigation into illegal activities will be launched. Read the full story

Eva Joly, special adviser to Iceland’s banking collapse investigation says she is pleased with the way the investigation into origins of the economic crisis is progressing and that the first prosecutions could come before the end of this year. She also feels, however, that more staff are still needed to work on the investigation. A delegation from Britain’s Serious Fraud Office will arrive in Iceland later this month to take part in the investigation. Read the full story

The government introduced an agreement with the bank’s resolution committee at a press conference today which was held in the National Theatre in the capital city of Reykjavik. Bank obligees will discuss the new agreement but hopes are rather high that they will accept this agreement. Read the full story

Iceland’s Prime Minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir said today that the state should not stay in control of the banks a day longer than is strictly necessary for their reorganisation. A new parliamentary bill recommends that the state bank holding organisation be wound up after five years, as the banks should already have been re-privatised by that time. Read the full story

Former Icelandic Prime Minister Geir H. Haarde visited Ireland last week with bad news for the ‘Celtic Tiger’, saying its economy will shrink more than Iceland’s this year. Read the full story

The Icelandic media have naturally been paying a lot of attention to the British parliamentary committee’s conclusions on the Icelandic banking collapse. The fact that Chancellor Alistair Darling comes in for criticism from a committee of British MPs is being seen as something of a vindication: the British made Iceland’s crisis worse than it needed to have been. But then nothing is ever that black and white. Read the full story

The SPRON resolution committee has reached an agreement on the sale of SPRON’s branch network. Hlynur Jonsson, the head of the resolution committee, confirmed this to visir.is a short while ago – although he would not say who the purchaser was, saying that the sale would be publicly presented later today. Read the full story