STOCKHOLM, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- Iceland's president Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said on Thursday that he would need time before signing an amended bill to repay more than 5 billion U.S. dollars lost by savers in Britain and the Netherlands when the island's banks collapsed, according to reports reaching here from Reykjavik.

    The President said that he would take into account the fact that a large number of the population had signed a petition urging him not to sign.

    Grimsson promised to meet representatives of the so-called In Defence-group that has been against the bill and has urged the President not to sign on January 2.

    Usually the President's signature is ceremonial, but the president has been under pressure to refuse to sign the bill, thereby putting the law to a national vote.

    Althingi, Iceland's parliament narrowly passed the bill late on Wednesday to pay 3.8 billion euros (5.4 billion dollars) to the British and Dutch governments, which had partially compensated more than 320,000 of their savers who lost money in the collapse of the Icesave online bank.

    Icesave, an online subsidiary of the Landsbanki bank that had to be rescued in October 2008 as the global credit crunch hit, had attracted savers due to its high interest rates.