Icesave - hard facts/possible Fortis takeover?

noh

meunier wrote: »

A question - and this may be simplistic, so forgive me. Understanding that Icesave was an Icelandic company, if there was an agreement by the Icelandic authorities - now that their assets have been seized - to allow the UK authorities to take over control of the website - and assuming that they (e.g., Iceland) have signed a legal agreement to return what monies they can through asset seizure - could not the monies BE returned electronically as they were - legally I assume - collected.

A lot of 'ifs' I understand - but I ask merely for information.

Luckily the icesave internet operations and back office were/are run ny NSSL a subsidary of Newcastle Building Society so I don't believe an agreement with Iceland would be required to take control of the website.

Pitlanepiglet

john5001 wrote: »

Dutch have already reached agreement where the Dutch have made a loan to Iceland, and the bank will pay back each investor up to 16k

Linky/source?

That would be good news...

saxmund

The FSCS has said that customers with ISAs should keep their tax free status. Surely the easiest way of doing this is to transfer the accounts to NS&I or another bank, I can't see how else they would do it. They can't send you a cheque (as it would break tax free status), so they would have to notify people that the money was available and wait for them to open new ISAs and ask for the new provider to transfer in the old Icesave ISA. So I would agree with rathernot that a likely approach may be to agree with the Icelandic authorities that the UK would buy Icesave, and then either keep the savings nationalised or maybe sell them on to another bank a la KE. It would be interesting to see details of the Dutch deal.

cos69

The Dutch situation was reported on Sky news, think a link to their website was published in other threads.

Statement by the FSCS yesterday seems good news
http://www.fscs.org.uk/consumer/

....Many callers to our helplines have enquired whether they will need to make separate applications - to Iceland, to ourselves and to the Government. We remain hopeful that we will be able to reach agreement on arrangements which will mean that you only have to deal directly with one of the three organisations, the FSCS. We will post a further update on our website as soon as we can, and expect to be able to give you firm news by the end of next week. But there is no need to take any action at this time .....

The European Economic Area rules (which apply to the UK) state that payment has to be made within 3 months of a compensation scheme being invoked so the FSA seems to have upto 8th January to make compensation although suspect they will do it before Christmas. Saves Gordon Brown having to watch all those grannies and mums being portrayed on TV as not being able to buy Xmas food and presses for the kids.

noh

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Linky/source?

That would be good news...

Been posted before but here it is

http://eng.forsaetisraduneyti.is/news-and-articles/nr/3049

EalingSaver

It will certainly be interesting to see what happens. Maybe more news by close of play today/tomorrow monring.

"So I would agree with rathernot that a likely approach may be to agree with the Icelandic authorities that the UK would buy Icesave, and then either keep the savings nationalised or maybe sell them on to another bank a la KE."

Understand your points saxmund. But I guess it wouldn't be UK buying it, except for a nominal £1 sum?? The deposits have no value. But something along the lines of the dutch scheme: UK makes a loan to Iceland, the money is then injected into IceSave to cover some of its liabilities, and the UK buys (and possibly then sells on) for a nominal amount.

Who knows...we will see.

cwcw

I've written to the FSCS to suggest that they use the existing Icesave infrastructure (website and backend) and simply liquidate the accounts with the compensation money. People could then log in as usual and withdraw as required (FSCS could give a deadline to reclaim balances and a nominal interest rate post October 7th). ISA transfers could be done in the usual way. This method means minimal paper work and expense.

del1001

meanmachine wrote: »

Unfortunately, the very nanosecond my money becomes "unfrozen", I'll be shipping it right back to Blighty. I suspect 99.9% of people would do the same.

Yep, I think that's a pretty fair assumption, me for one, and I won't be investing in any bank that use's the passport scheme ever again

ajaxgeezer

del1001 wrote: »

Yep, I think that's a pretty fair assumption, me for one, and I won't be investing in any bank that use's the passport scheme ever again

.......or any savings at all in any institution, even in the UK...unless I am happy that I may not see them for as long as it takes for an FSCS claim.

No more stoozing for me until all 'this' is over. I remember a certain Mr Lewis declaring that 2008 would be the year of the defensive consumer. How blimmin' prophetic was that?

del1001

cwcw wrote: »

I've written to the FSCS to suggest that they use the existing Icesave infrastructure (website and backend) and simply liquidate the accounts with the compensation money. People could then log in as usual and withdraw as required (FSCS could give a deadline to reclaim balances and a nominal interest rate post October 7th). ISA transfers could be done in the usual way. This method means minimal paper work and expense.

yeah, that's ok, but what about a good many like myself that have fixed term deposits with icesave (as posted in another thread), apparently there would have to be a rule change for the money to be payed out early