Talks between Iceland and the Treasury over the repayment of a $5 billion (£3.3 billion) bailout loan hit a stalemate yesterday after the Government in Reykjavik insisted that the proposed interest bill was too onerous.

While Johanna Sigurdardottir, the Icelandic Prime Minister, said that she hoped a deal was still possible in the short term, Britain and the Netherlands, which are owed the money, are dismayed that a revised interest repayment schedule has been rejected.

If the stalemate continues, it is expected that Icelanders will effectively vote to reject repaying the money in a referendum scheduled for March 6.  27-Feb-10.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/europe/article7043273.ece

Negotiations with Iceland over the repayment of £2.3 billion in debts to the UK have broken down after representatives of the island nation walked out of talks in London.

The walk-out means that Iceland will next week hold a referendum expected to reject a deal for repayment of cash owed to Britain and the Netherlands as a result of the collapse of Landsbanki, the bank behind the Icesave internet savings account.

The UK and Dutch governments this evening said they were "disappointed" that no deal had been reached after 18 months of talks.

Sources close to the talks said that Iceland had been offered an advantageous new floating interest rate on the debt, based on Libor (London inter-bank rate) plus 2.75%, which would have represented a significant cut on the 5.5% currently being charged. Also on the table was the offer of a two-year interest holiday worth around £400 million. 25-Feb-10.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5h-IemhTFfxXoYkXuBHzFy3ck0Nyg

An investigation into the collapse of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander is to hear from representatives of the depositors.

The Tynwald Select Committee will take evidence from Dr Angela Downs of the KSFIOM Depositors' Action Group and and Stephen Thomas, who represents another group, at a specially convened meeting.

Members of the public are welcome to attend the session, at the legislative buildings in Douglas, from 2.30pm on Wednesday (February 24). 23-Feb-10.

http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=42937

Brussels - Repayment of money spent by the Dutch and the British governments to rescue savers caught out by the Icelandic banking collapse is a "bilateral" matter between the countries concerned, the European commissioner for enlargement said Wednesday. Stefan Fuele was defending the European Commission's decision to give a positive opinion on the start of EU-Iceland accession talks before the issue is resolved.

"While the commission is following closely talks between Iceland on one side and (Britain) and the Netherlands on the other side, it is of the opinion that this is a bilateral issue that has no implication on the opinion," he said. Iceland rejected Monday a Dutch and British a new proposal to repay 5.4 billion dollars lost by investors when Icesave bank, an arm of the Landsbanki lender collapsed in the autumn of 2008. Earth Times website - 24-Feb-10.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/311035,extra-icelands-bank-debt-is-bilateral-issue-eu-commission-says.html

The leaders of Iceland’s political parties have decided to politely request further talks with the British and Dutch authorities over Icesave.

The meeting between Icelandic government and opposition party leaders has just finished where it was decided that no counter offer will be sent to this weekend’s Icesave repayment proposal from the British and Dutch governments. Instead, the party leaders have decided to send a courteous response to London and The Hague requesting a further trilateral meeting of the three nations’ negotiating teams.

Both the government parties and the opposition parties agreed at the meeting that the new offer is not acceptable. It still needs amendments.  22-Feb-10.

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2010/02/22/new-icesave-offer-%E2%80%9Cnot-acceptable%E2%80%9D/

RECOVERING Landsbanki depositors’ money is down to the administrators, not the States, according to the chief minister. . .

Landsbanki Guernsey savers have accused the Guernsey Financial Services Commission of allowing the bank to advertise a worthless parental guarantee.

It follows the Icelandic Winding-up Board rejecting savers’ claims because Landsbanki Guernsey did not have a guarantee from its Icelandic parent company to back its deposits. . .

The GFSC does require subsidiary banks to have letters of comfort in place but it has always recognised that these are not legally binding and made that point plainly in the same consultation paper. . .

‘It is clearly incorrect for the LGDAG to “question the validity” of the chief minister’s recent assurances that Landsbanki Guernsey depositors would be treated fairly by the Winding-Up Board, as claimed by the LGDAG. I regrettably cannot do anything other than to express my disappointment that the LGDAG has sought to personalise the matter and in doing so misrepresent our position.’

Guernsey savers have so far had a little over two thirds of their money back.  22-Feb-10.

http://www.thisisguernsey.com/2010/02/22/landsbanki-cash-recovery-for-administrators-not-the-states/

DEPOSITORS in a Guernsey bank that went bust are angry that a guarantee from its Icelandic parent now appears not to be worth the paper it was written on.

Earlier this week the winding up board for Landsbanki’s affairs in Iceland rejected depositors’ claims under the Guernsey bank’s parental guarantee. And the people who banked at Landsbanki Guernsey are now accusing the Guernsey Financial Services Commission of not doing its job properly.

A group representing the Jesey and Guernsey depositors said that the regulator allowed the bank to advertise a parental guarantee to potential customers that has not now been honoured. They also say that recent assurances given by Guernsey Chief Minister Lyndon Trott, that depositors would be treated fairly by the winding up board, were worthless.

The group is calling for an independent public inquiry to investigate what went wrong and to hold people to account.

About 100 Jersey depositors are still owed about £2 million after the bank failed in October 2008. Over a period of time, they have been repaid chunks of their savings and have so far got back about two thirds. 20-Feb-10.

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/02/20/depositors-seek-landsbanki-i

REUTERS: The Netherlands and Britain are proposing a new debt repayment deal with Iceland which may save the island nation holding a politically risky referendum on the Icesave crisis, a source said Friday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source familiar with the situation said the offer's main feature is a floating interest rate designed to ease Iceland's burden as it repays $5 billion (3.24 billion pounds) to the two European Union countries.

The offer maintains other elements of a deal the three sides agreed in October, including full debt repayment and a 7-year grace period, the source told Reuters.

The source described it as "an offer they can't refuse," specifically designed to address the Icelandic government's primary concerns about the existing arrangement while guaranteeing a reasonable rate of interest for its creditors. Yahoo! UK & Ireland News website - 19-Feb-10.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100215/tpl-uk-iceland-icesave-c31991c.html

The unthinkable had happened on both sides of the Atlantic. One of Wall Street’s biggest banks had been allowed to fail and, in Britain, the Treasury had nationalised Bradford & Bingley to prevent a run across the financial sector.

Against this backdrop, Alistair Darling and his Treasury officials were desperate to identify which bank might fail next. And so tiny Iceland became the new focus of the Chancellor, the Bank of England and an array of civil servants in Whitehall.

At stake was £3 billion of British investors’ money that had been sunk into the overheated and teetering Icelandic economy. Far from an esoteric investment target of City professionals, Mr Darling was faced with the prospect of local authority pension funds, charities and NHS retirement schemes bearing substantial losses. . .

Only weeks ago, Paul Tucker, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, pointed out to MPs the utmost importance of having a state-funded deposit guarantee scheme that paid out within weeks of a lender’s failure.  19-Feb-10.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article7032888.ece

'Sir Nicholas Macpherson appears to have put his opposition to a loan for Iceland on record in a letter to the Chancellor'

Lehman Brothers had collapsed three weeks earlier, but as the world banking system teetered on the brink of collapse, Alistair Darling and his chief civil servant were engaging in a heated dispute about whether to bail out an Icelandic savings bank.

Letters obtained by the Liberal Democrats and shown to The Times offer extraordinary details of the battle between the Chancellor and Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, over using taxpayer money to extend a £3 billion loan to Iceland in October 2008.

While Sir Nicholas expressed his deep concerns about underwriting the deposits of Icesave, Landsbanki’s online savings business, and warned that Britain might not be repaid, Mr Darling overruled both the civil servant and the Bank of England, ordering the Government to extend a multibillion-pound loan to Reykjavik. 19-Feb-10.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article7032886.ece