27 Oct 2008

Nordic leaders to discuss banking crisis

10:32 am on 27 October 2008

Prime ministers from the five Nordic countries will meet on Monday in Helsinki to discuss the global financial crisis.

Leaders from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland will meet at the annual Nordic Council summit on ways to tackle the crisis.

The discussion is at the request of the prime minister of Iceland, which has seen its banking system collapse in recent weeks.

Three of the country's banks are now nationalised and the currency, the Icelandic krona, has fallen heavily.

On Friday, Iceland asked the International Monetary Fund for a loan of $US2.1 billion.

The Nordic Council was set up in 1952.