How safe is Barclays?

Babycakes

I know that I am protected by the FSCS.

However, this is my day to day bank and if it fails then I will be unable to pay my mortgage or my bills or even pay for my food shopping. If the FSCS take a month to repay us and open new accounts then that will be really tough.

Should I open another current account and spread my money across the two or should I open a National Savings account?

The other option is to withdraw enough money for 3-6 months and put it into a safety deposit box.

GeorgeHowell

Barclays appears to be averagely troubled -- more than HSBS and possibly than Lloyds TSB, but not as much as HBOS or RBS. They are participating in the givernment rescue, and I can't see any way that HMG is going to let any of those involved in that get into real difficulties like not going to pay depositors withdrawals. If it gives you peace of mind you could move some money out each month to another account, but watch out for charges and other hassles if you're keeping a relatively small balance in each, or worse still go overdrawn on one of them. Internet banking would make it much easier to manage.

Blah99

There is absolutely no way the Government will allow the big banks that serve commercial and private depositors to collapse totally. If, for example, Barclays "did an Icesave" and prevented any deposits or withdrawals the entire country would grind to a halt.

No-one could pay their bills, pay for food, receive their salary etc etc. Companies couldn't pay salaries, pay suppliers, pay importers, pay tax bills, pay for diesel for haulage etc etc etc. They did a study on this once and worked out it would only take 3 days for the country to collapse on itself in that situation (ie: riots etc).

Everyone can stop worrying about that.

Foggy

Blah99 wrote: »

There is absolutely no way the Government will allow the big banks that serve commercial and private depositors to collapse totally. If, for example, Barclays "did an Icesave" and prevented any deposits or withdrawals the entire country would grind to a halt.

No-one could pay their bills, pay for food, receive their salary etc etc. Companies couldn't pay salaries, pay suppliers, pay importers, pay tax bills, pay for diesel for haulage etc etc etc. They did a study on this once and worked out it would only take 3 days for the country to collapse on itself in that situation (ie: riots etc).

Everyone can stop worrying about that.

Right thats it. I'm off to stock up on water, beans, camping gas and empty sainsburys of their cheap booze.....

Browntoa

the US treasury was happy before Lehmans collapsed to let Barclays take them over, I'm sure they looked at Barclays books to make sure they were not in the same boat ??