Supporting the community

Arion Bank organizes a wide range of informative lectures, conferences and events and is an active member of the community. More than 3,600 people attended lectures, conferences and other events organized by the Bank in 2020. Arion Bank also participated in numerous conferences and exhibitions elsewhere. COVID-19 meant that the Bank hosted far fewer events than the previous year. Around 1,800 people attended events held at the Bank’s headquarters and 1,850 watched events that were streamed live.

Events held in 2020 included:

  • Around 600 people watched the chief economist present the Bank’s economic forecast, events which were also streamed live on Arion Bank Facebook page.

  • Numerous customers and other guests attended informative meetings discussing pension savings.

  • At the beginning of the year several hundred university students visited the Bank to learn about the company.

  • Numerous other meetings were also streamed live, e.g. informative lectures on bridge loans and how to finance your first home. 

Giving back to the community

Arion Bank collaborates with numerous organizations and companies and supports a wide range of good causes in the community. We sponsor the Iceland Design Centre, the Icelandic Handball Association, the Icelandic Sports Association for the Disabled, NKG Innovation Competition and the National Olympic and Sports Association of Iceland. In addition the branches support diverse issues in their home towns.

  • This partnership includes Arion Bank’s support for DesignMarch, one of the Iceland Design Centre’s main venues for promoting Icelandic design and ingenuity.

  • The Bank is one of the sponsors of the National Olympic and Sports Association and it provides strong support to the association with the goal of promoting sport in Iceland and participation in international events by Icelandic competitors.

  • Arion Bank is one of the main sponsors of the Icelandic Sports Association for the Disabled and is helping athletes prepare at the 2021 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo.

  • Arion Bank is one of the main sponsors of the Icelandic Handball Association and has been providing backing for the sport in Iceland for many years.

  • Arion Bank supports the Icelandic Forestry Association, helping to fund an initiative to further advance public knowledge of forests, provide information and improve access to forests for recreational purposes. The Bank also provides funding to plant trees.

  • We also provide support to a number of charities including the Icelandic Cancer Society and the Icelandic Red Cross, and our branches support diverse sport and cultural activities in their home towns.

  • Arion Bank is sponsoring the Dean’s List at Reykjavík University for the next three years after a signing a partnership agreement in November 2020. The Dean’s List is reserved for students who achieve the best results each semester. The aim of the list is to inspire students who gain outstanding academic results and to highlight their achievements. Students on the RU Dean’s List have their tuition fees for the next semester waived.

Art and design

The Bank owns around 1,200 works of art by many of Iceland's leading artists and many of these works are on display at Arion Bank's branches and places of work. Over the years the Bank has shared its passion for art with employees and customers by arranging a series of exhibitions and lectures at the Bank’s headquarters. These exhibitions have shown works both from the Bank’s own collection and works borrowed from artists and museums. The Bank has forged close relationships with museums in Iceland and abroad, borrowing and lending various works for exhibitions.

In 2020 there was a focus on textile art in Icelandic museums and works from the Bank’s collection were lent to several of those exhibitions. The work Autumn Forest, a wool work by Ásgerður Búadóttir was loaned to a retrospective exhibition of her work at Reykjavik Art Museum, a woven piece by Auður Vésteinsdóttir and works by Ingunn Fjóla Ingþórsdóttir and Ívar Valgarðsson were loaned to the exhibition Threads of Art at the National Gallery of Iceland and an embroidered work by Loji Höskuldsson was shown at an exhibition at the Reykjanes Art Museum.

At the end of 2019 the Bank’s Akureyri branch moved to new premises and to mark the occasion several works were donated to Akureyri Art Museum in the summer of 2020, works which are all connected to the town. They included a 1905 painting of Akureyri by Einar Jónsson frá Fossi and works by local artist Óli G. Jóhannsson. The Bank added several new works to its collection during the year, including a series of prints by Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson, a textile work by Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir, a photographic work by Daníel Magnússon and a painting by Georg Guðni.