A great many things have changed since Landsbankinn Economic Research published its last macroeconomic and inflation forecast in October last year. The Covid-19 pandemic, with all its restrictions on consumption and daily life, has subsided and people are again free to travel. Icelandic consumption patterns in the past few months have shown clear signs of increased overseas travel and the stream of travellers to Iceland is also increasing. In general, the outlook can be described as bright. We forecast 5.1% economic growth this year, upping our forecast somewhat from last year, and expect growth to be driven by an increase in tourist numbers, a total of 1.5 million this year. Travellers to Iceland numbered 690,000 in 2021.

Our self-service solutions will be unavailable for around two hours this evening, between 21-23:00, because of a systems update. Online banking, the app and ATMs will be unavailable during this time. We regret any inconvenience this may cause.

Landsbankinn now offers electronic public registration of refinanced mortgages, first among the domestic banks. Work is under way to allow for electronic registration of all housing mortgage documents.

Variable interest rates on non-indexed housing mortgages increase by 0.70 percentage points (pp), to 5.40%. Fixed rates on new non-indexed housing mortgages increase by 0.10-0.15 pp. Interest rates on indexed housing mortgages do not change, neither variable nor fixed rates.