Collaboration projects
Landsbankinn takes an active part in many collaborative projects to encourage development and progress in the community. The diverse projects touch on many areas of society, including culture, education, innovation, the travel industry and public health.
Reykjavík Pride
Landsbankinn supports the campaign for equal rights of LGBT groups and is a proud sponsor of Reykjavík Pride. In addition to supporting the festival financially Landsbankinn has undertaken to distribute the festival programme through all its branches in order to promote it better throughout Iceland.
More about Reykjavík Pride
Skólahreysti
Landsbankinn is the primary sponsor of the school fitness competition Skólahreysti. Its objective is to encourage children to participate in a sporting event focused on general physical fitness, where contestants are building up their own strength through various trials. The popularity of Skólahreysti has increased steadily and now some 600 youngsters compete on behalf of their schools, with several thousand active supporters cheering them on. In addition to Landsbankinn, Skólahreysti is sponsored by the Ministry of Education Science and Culture, the Nordic Council of Ministers, Toyota in Iceland and the National Olympic and Sport Association of Iceland.
Iceland Airwaves
Landsbankinn is proud to be a sponsor of the music festival Iceland Airwaves. Through its funding the bank supports young musicians, which is both part of the bank's corporate social responsibility and a means of providing active support for the arts and culture in Iceland. As in the previous year, Landbankinn arranged for promising young musicians Axel Flóvent, dj flugvél og geimskip and Hr. Hnetusmjör to assist as warm-up numbers for the festival, which took place 4-8 November.
Interviews with these leading young musicians are available on Landsbankinn's Airwaves web. They also appeared at an off-venue event held in the bank's downtown branch on Austurstræti on Saturday, 7 November, playing for a full house with great acclaim.
Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute
Landsbankinn is the leading sponsor of the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute for Foreign Languages, together with ten other undertakings. In recent years, Landsbankinn has been a strong supporter of the Institute honouring the former President of Iceland and UN Language Ambassador Vigdís Finnbogadóttir. The grants will be used for day-to-day activities in connection with the preparations of the Vigdís International Centre for Multilingualism and Intercultural Understanding – a new international centre for language and culture officially recognised by the UN Educational and Scientific Organisation UNESCO.
The operations of the International Centre, currently under construction, are aimed at honouring President Vigdís's untiring efforts on behalf of the world's languages and to continue her pioneering international work as the first and only UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Languages.
UN Women
Landsbankinn has for some years enjoyed very positive collaboration with UN Women in Iceland and sponsored important projects by the national committee. The bank has, for instance, provided support for the HeForShe project, which is aimed at encouraging men and boys to make their contribution to equal rights in all walks of life.
In 2011 Landsbankinn signed the equality charter Women's Empowerment Principles – Equality means Business, an international campaign by UN Women and UN Global Compact. In so doing the bank obliged itself to work on equal rights within the company, as the charter contains seven principles which are to serve as guidelines in empowering women in undertakings and increasing their contribution to business and industry.
Culture Night
Landsbankinn has been an active participant in Culture Night ever since it began, both by sponsoring the festival each year and opening its own doors to visitors. The bank was determined to have its financial support go directly to artists and groups of artists who arrange Culture Night events.
To achieve this, a special Culture Night jackpot was set up by Visit Reykjavík and Landsbankinn, to promote original and unusual ideas. A large number of grants of moderate amounts are distributed, and have proven a very positive addition to the successful collaboration of Visit Reykjavík and Landsbankinn.
Financial literacy
For quite a number of years Landsbankinn has emphasised instruction in financial affairs for youngsters in compulsory and secondary schools. The bank is an active contributor to the project Fjármálavit, which provides instructional materials in financial literacy for the older grades of compulsory schools, while the Icelandic Financial Services Association (SFF) organises the project in partnership with its member companies. Employees of SFF member companies throughout Iceland visit their local schools to present the material.Eimskip University Fund
Landsbankinn is custodian of the Eimskip University Fund, which has operated in its current form since 2005. That year major changes were made to the structure of the Fund aimed at providing grants to students in graduate research work at the University of Iceland. The first awards made by the Fund after these changes took place in 2006 and since that time over 80 doctoral students at the University of Iceland in a variety of disciplines have received support from the Fund.Conferences and meetings
Each year Landsbankinn arranges a variety of conferences and meetings, as well as publishing various papers and analyses on business and economic affairs. In 2015 the bank organised four large conferences: on Prospects and Opportunities in the Telecom Market; Travel Industry Growth; Opportunities Offered by Lower Oil Prices; and finally the bank's annual presentation of Economic Research's macroeconomic forecast. The last-mentioned conference also discussed the removal of capital controls and stability conditions. Over a thousand persons attended these events organised by the bank, which have become a regular and important forum for debate on leading issues of current affairs.
Support for sports and youth activities
Landsbankinn devotes major efforts to support sports in Iceland. This the bank's branches carry out with direct co-operation agreements with sports clubs throughout Iceland. In such partnerships the bank emphasises encouraging activities with children and youth and ensuring that its support assists both women's and men's sports.
The bank's largest individual agreement in the field of sports is with the Football Association of Iceland. Landsbankinn and five other undertakings support football (soccer) development efforts all around Iceland, all the national youth teams and the women's and men's A teams.
Iceland Luxury
Together with Icelandair Group, the Blue Lagoon and Meet in Reykjavík, Landsbankinn is part of a strategic three-year project aimed at marketing Iceland for travellers who demanded high quality services. The project, Iceland Luxury, is hosted and managed by Meet in Reykjavík. The objective of the partnership is to map out a long-term strategy in this area, strengthen the image of Reykjavik and Iceland in the eyes of wealthy travellers, boost the combined impact of enterprises operating in this market and encourage the development of infrastructure and services for this target group. The collaboration is a continuation of development work which began with the establishment of Meet in Reykjavík in 2012, efforts which Landsbankinn also supports.
Iceland Year Round
Landsbankinn has supported the marketing campaign Iceland Year Round right from its inception. A new agreement concerning the project was signed on 18 December 2014 which extends until year-end 2016. The purpose of the project is to establish travel services more firmly as a year-round industry and to increase their profitability with the aim of creating foreign currency earnings for the economy. The marketing is carried out by Promote Iceland under the Inspired by Iceland theme.
More about Inspired by IcelandIceland Ocean Cluster
Landsbankinn is a member of Iceland Ocean Cluster, the aim of which is to increase competitiveness and value creation of Icelandic enterprises which base their operations directly or indirectly on utilisation of marine resources. Since it was established, Iceland Ocean Cluster has encouraged development and innovation in those sectors which form the cluster, in collaboration with enterprises and educational institutions, as well as publishing analyses and research of various kinds. Some 60 enterprises and institutions with various marine-related activities in Iceland are formally members of the co-operation in Iceland Ocean Cluster.Svanni credit insurance fund
In collaboration with Svanni, a women's credit insurance fund, Landsbankinn provides credit to women business entrepreneurs. Landsbankinn provides security for half of the loans and the fund the other half, thereby insuring women starting new businesses with better access to capital and increasing their possibilities of establishing successful operations. The co-operation agreement is part of Landsbankinn's contribution to strengthening business and industry and encouraging innovation in Iceland.Centre of Excellence for Ocean Conservation
Landsbankinn is one of the sponsors of Hafið, the Icelandic Center of Excellence for Sustainable Use and Conservation of the Ocean. The Centre develops ideas for ocean conservation by reducing pollution through green tech solutions. The ambitious, large scale project is supported by a large number of other parties: the Ministry for the Environment and Natural Resources, City of Reykjavík, University of Iceland, Reykjavík University, Marine Research Institute, National Energy Authority, Federation of Icelandic Industries, Fisheries Iceland, Grandi hf., CleanTech Iceland, which is an association of green technology companies, and a large number of technology companies. Hafið provides a forum for co-operation between enterprises, public bodies and research institutes working on ocean conservation internationally.
More about Arctic CircleCluster collaboration in the travel industry
Landsbankinn has been a partner in travel industry collaboration since its establishment in 2012. The principal objective of this collaboration is to increase competitiveness and value creation in the travel industry by applying ideas from Porter's cluster methodology. The cluster collaboration includes key enterprises in travel services, public entities and undertakings which provide support for or co-operate with the sector.