Articles by Sigrún Davídsdóttir

About the Author

Sigrún Davídsdóttir
Sigrún Davídsdóttir is an Icelandic journalist based in London. Her interests are European and international politics and economy, the eurocrisis, banking, tax havens and corruption (often through the prism of the Icelandic financial collapse in 2008) - as well as arts, culture and food.



Icelandic krone

What Icelandic business practices can (possibly) tell us about China

LONDON | July 13, 2015 | By Sigrún Davídsdóttir | Many controlling shareholders in China have pledged shares as collateral for bank loans – this was a common practice in Iceland up to the October 2008 banking collapse. Now this practice seems to be causing share trading suspensions in China.


A EU flag

Capital controls: Greece and Iceland

LONDON | June 30, 2015 | By Sigrún Davídsdóttir | Now that Greece has controls on outflow from banks, capital controls, many commentators are comparing Greece to Iceland. There is little comparison to be made between the nature of capital controls in these two countries. The controls are different in every respect except in the name. Iceland had, what I would call, real capital controls – Greece has control on outflow from banks. With the names changed, the difference is clear.




hands tiedTC

Cyprus and Iceland: a tale of two capital controls

LONDON | March 6, 2015 | By Sigrún DavídsdóttirBoth in Cyprus and Iceland foreign funds flowed into the islands, in the end forcing the government to make use of extreme measures when the tide turned. These measures are normally called ‘capital controls’ which in these two cases hides the fact that the measures used are fundamentally different in all but name. In Iceland, the controls contain the effect of lacking foreign currency, effectively a balance of payment problem – in Cyprus, the controls were a way of defending banks against bank run, i.e. preventing depositors to move funds freely.