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Coronavirus and oil send Norway’s krone plummeting to new low

An unusually sharp dip in oil prices over the weekend has left Norway’s already-weakened currency at its lowest-ever value compared to the euro.

Published: 9 March 2020 15:30 CET

Coronavirus and oil send Norway’s krone plummeting to new low

Photo: kjelljoran /Creative Commons

The depreciation of the krone increased late on Sunday night after a fall in oil prices, finance media E24 reports.

Against the euro, the krone had depreciated around 51 øre or 5 per cent as of Monday morning, E24 writes, putting 1 euro at a value of 10.95 kroner, most expensive price Norwegians have ever paid for the European single currency.

Additionally, the krone depreciated by around 31 cents or 3.39 per cent against the dollar. One dollar now costs 9.55, the worst rate for buying dollars with kroner since October 2000.

The further weakening of Norway’s currency comes when market uncertainty is also high due to the outbreak of coronavirus.

A breakdown in negotiations between Opec and Russia on Friday further exacerbated the problems facing the krone, according to E24’s report.

Just before 9am on Monday, oil prices plunged 26.68 percent to $33.39 a barrel, the biggest fall in oil prices since the Gulf War.

“It has gone from bad to worse. Oil prices have not hit bottom yet. If the supply continues to increase and there is a price war, that is going to hit the krone full on. This is happening on top of everything else,” Magne Østnor, a currency strategist with bank DNB, told E24.

READ ALSO: Why Norway's krone could keep losing value

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Spanish town brings back the peseta in bid to boost spending

Old peseta notes and coins can be exchanged until the end of 2020. Photo: AFP

The Multipaterna Commerce and Services Association has launched a campaign that allows payment to be made with pesetas in certain establishments in Paterna, a town in the Valencian Community.

The campaign, which includes hardware stores, opticians, computer and electronics stores, real estate, florists, lingerie stores and parcel kiosks, will run until December 15th.

For the rest of Spain those who still have the old currency there is still a few months left to convert them into euros, although they can’t spend them in shops.

Spaniards have been told that they have until December 31st 2020 to exchange their pesetas for euros and that applies for both bank notes and coins.

Any notes produced during the Franco era, which ran from the end of the Civil War in 1939 until the dictator's death in 1975 can be automatically changed by the Bank of Spain.

Those issued during the conflict can also be exchanged but the process will involve them being analysed by experts to confirm their authenticity.

And any coins still in circulation at the time that euros were brought in on New Year's Day in 2002 can also be exchanged at Bank of Spain headquarters in Madrid.

The exchange rate offered by the Bank of Spain is 1 euro = 166,386 pesetas but the bank advised that commemorative coins and notes may be worth more as collectors' items than for their face value, which is all that will be offered in the exchange scheme.

The Bank of Spain estimates that pesetas worth some €1.61 billion are squirreled away in Spanish homes, cluttering up the drawers of old desks and trunks in dusty old attics.

Many will never see the light of the day and others have become collectors' items now worth more than their exchangeable value.

Spain adopted the Euro at the start of 2002 but pesetas were still legal currency during a transition period that lasted the first three months of that year.

Exchanges can be made in person at the Banco España building on Madrid's Calle Alcala or via a postal or online service, even available to those abroad. For more information check out the official webpage of the Banco España HERE.

By Conor Patrick Faulkner in Valencia

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