The Banking Environment
Economic and political environment
Norway is a parliamentary monarchy and has about 4.5 million inhabitants.
Norway is not a member of the European Union, however is a member of the EEA.
70-75% of export trade are with EU countries and 65-70% of import trade are from EU countries.
Norway has an independent attitude in foreign affairs. Within Norway the collaborative prevails. In the banking system there is an obvious willingness to act on a cooperative level. The evidenced you would be able to see by the existence of common standards for eInvoicing and the way retail payments are cleared.
Norway is large geographically: The distance from Oslo to the North Cape is as far as from Oslo to Naples. Remote communities are heavily dependent on telecommunications, and this can be via satellite as much as via mobile phone because of the mountainous terrain.
Norway has few multinationals. Shipping, oil&gas, forestry are the main industries.
Banking in general
Norway was affected of a general banking crisis in the early 1990s, after which there was much consolidation. The market is dominated by a small number of large banks. The banking industry is kind of liberal. The infrastructure of day-to-day operations is either publicly-owned or under strong public supervision.
Norges Bank (NB) is the central bank in Norway and financial supervision is vested in “Kredittilsynet”.
About 95% of cashless payments are done via giro transfer, of which there are several subtypes.
There are no lifting fees for cross-border payments. Norway has adopted the EU regulation on cross-border payments in EUR even though the country not is a member of the EU nor of EMU.
Current accounts in NOK and foreign currencies are offered. Interest is applied for credit balances depending on the currency and the balance held.
Corporates are obliged to hold a special tax account (“Skattetrekk”) in which to accumulate their tax payable.
Overdraft facilities are granted. Terms and conditions are mostly negotiated case by case.
NIBOR (Norwegian Interbank Offered rate) is the benchmark interest rate in NOK.
Currency
The Norwegian krone (NOK)