How safe is RBS?

Geoff_W

My wife and I have banked with NatWest for decades. All of our income streams (pensions etc.) are paid into our current account. My wife also has over £8,000 of working capital in a NatWest E-Savings account.

My question is this....

Should we hope for the best or bail out of this dead duck asap. Having just recovered from being caught up in the IceSave debacle, I'm not sure we want to go through all that again. There seems to be nowhere safe for money these days!

Geoff

mrposhman

The worst thing people could do is remove their cash and cause a run on the bank. Thats a sure fire way of seeing RBS in total government ownership.

Blah99

Safe as houses. I have the bulk of my cash in Natwest, along with my current accounts etc. There is absolutely no way RBS (or HBOS, or any of the big banks) will close its doors, you have nothing to worry about no matter how bad things get. If it even remotely looked like a possibility the Government would step in instantly.

There will be no run on the big banks either. The absolute worst thing that could happen is that a run begins on a bank and everyone is immediately prevented from withdrawing more than a percentage of their total cash on deposit as cash. That would allow everyone to still pay their bills, still take £250 out of a cash machine to buy whatever, still use switch to buy stuff in shops, but would prevent the wholesale withdrawal of deposits.

Look at it this way, if one of the big banks failed and stopped allowing deposits/withdrawals the entire country would grind to a halt near enough instantly. If people did start a run on one of the banks, where exactly would they decide was a good place for their cash? Mind you people are sheep, so it's quite possible.

Mike1989

RBS are 70% or will be up to 70% state owned and some say they might well go the whole way and nationalise it. Either way, nationalised or not, RBS is probably the second safest bank behind Northern Rock. Because it is government backed and they won't allow that bank to go under. But if the day did come that RBS went under, the likelihood is there would not be another bank safe to put your money into.

sabretoothtigger

Its a clearing bank so either the uk collapses or even if they do get nationalised it wont effect actual business. Still wouldnt leave over 50k there though

the main subsidiary companies are: The Royal Bank of Scotland; National Westminster Bank; Ulster Bank; Drummonds and Coutts & Co. In the United States, it owns Citizens Financial Group, the 8th largest bank in the country. From 2004 to 2009 it was the second largest shareholder in the Bank of China, itself the world's fifth largest bank by market capitalization in February 2008.[4] Insurance companies include Churchill Insurance, Direct Line, Privilege, and NIG.

ps2659

What about Tesco personal finance is this not owned by RBS. :eek:

I,_Brian

Good policy to spread savings around different banks, but what people forget is that RBS has massive insurance operations. I wouldn't think anyone is going to lose savings with RBS anytime soon.

sabretoothtigger

ps2659 wrote: »

What about Tesco personal finance is this not owned by RBS. :eek:

Tesco paid RBS a billion for control of all operations. There is talk of tesco mortgages in future though they have no bank branches they are their own bank I think

hopefulfooluk

ps2659 wrote: »

What about Tesco personal finance is this not owned by RBS. :eek:

RBS currently has a 50% stake in Tesco Personal Finance, so they're not fully owned by RBS - the other half is private venture.

soulsaver

hopefulfooluk wrote: »

RBS currently has a 50% stake in Tesco Personal Finance, so they're not fully owned by RBS - the other half is private venture.

And Tesco is separately covered by FSCS from RBS.

caileag

hopefulfooluk wrote: »

RBS currently has a 50% stake in Tesco Personal Finance, so they're not fully owned by RBS - the other half is private venture.

Not any more, RBS sold their share, and control has now passed to Tesco.