Status of domestic and international payment intermediation: Payments to Iceland
The importance of smoothly functioning cross-border payment intermediation through Iceland's commercial banks is apparent to all. Because of the difficulties with cross-border payments in the past few weeks, the Central Bank has decided to act as an intermediary in instances where other channels were closed.
The Bank has also declared that it will guarantee that all payments routed through the Central Bank's accounts to accounts in domestic credit institutions will be delivered to the account owners in those credit institutions. Those parties who expect payments from foreign countries must therefore ensure that the payer receives new information on payment routing. Payment instructions for all currencies that the Central Bank can receive can be found here (PDF file, updated October 30, 2008). Before providing the payer with the instructions, the party requesting payment must fill out the fields indicated in red in this document. The name of the recipient should follow the words “Final beneficiary” (line 6), and the IBAN number of the recipient’s bank account must be added in the field immediately below it (line 7).