31 March 2021

Announcement concerning Central Bank purchases of Treasury bonds

At the beginning of May 2020, the Central Bank of Iceland began buying Treasury bonds in the secondary market, in accordance with the 23 March 2020 statement by the Monetary Policy Committee. According to that decision, the total amount purchased may range up to 150 b.kr. The Bank will announce the maximum bond purchase amount for each quarter in advance.

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31 March 2021

Central Bank to reduce the extent of its regular programme of foreign currency sales

From Wednesday, 7 April 2021 through the end of the month, the Central Bank of Iceland will sell 3 million euros to market makers in the foreign exchange market three business days per week, for a total of 33 million euros during the month. The transactions will take place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday soon after the market opens, and no later than 10:00 hrs.

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29 March 2021

Countercyclical capital buffer held unchanged

The Central Bank of Iceland Financial Stability Committee (FSN) has decided to hold the countercyclical buffer on financial institutions unchanged. In the Committee’s opinion, no clear signs of increased cyclical systemic risk have come to the fore, and there is still some uncertainty about the quality of the financial institutions’ loan portfolios due to the impact of the pandemic. The countercyclical capital buffer is reviewed on a quarterly basis, and decisions to increase it generally do not take effect until twelve months later. The FSN statement will be published on 14 April 2021.

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29 March 2021

Financial Stability Committee report to Parliament

The Central Bank of Iceland Financial Stability Committee’s (FSN) report to Parliament on its work in 2020 has been published on the Bank’s website. The FSN reports to Parliament on its work once a year. In 2020, the Committee’s first year of operation, it met a total of six times and released five statements.

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29 March 2021

Minutes of the Financial Stability Committee meeting in December 2020

The minutes of the Central Bank of Iceland Financial Stability Committee’s (FSN) meeting held on 14-15 December 2020 have been published. At the meeting, the FSN decided to designate the Central Bank’s new interbank payment system and the Nasdaq CSD SE securities settlement system as systemically important infrastructure. The Committee also decided to hold the countercyclical capital buffer unchanged.

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