Offshore Banking - AIB- Safe ??

jackas

so are we saying dont invest here at all or anything over 50k ??? still unsure...............
Jackas

njstone9

rockitup wrote: »

Coincidence that you read about the scaling down of Anglo Irish IOM in the Telegraph. The very same paper that I read an article about the Icelandic banks risks almost 8 months before their collapse in 2008.

I had a good bit deposited with Icesave UK and A & L IOM and pulled out of Icesave in February 2008 when I read the Telegraph article and then subsequently moved all my cash from A & L IOM a couple of days after KSF/Landsbanki etc closed operations.

I too am Non-Resident in UK but luckily enough I was too lazy to close down my UK Bank accounts when I relocated so still have them to make use of the FSCS guarantees

Do you not ever make trips back to UK and could possibly open a new account/s and have a trusted relative/friend to receive your statements and ATM cards?. Then if you are elegible to receive interest gross you can make a claim on the R40 or R43 form (can't remember which) every year.

Even if I did do that, I'd have to lie and say I was UK resident. I don't really want to lie... In any case, I have already tried that. Last year I contacted the UK taxman, and he advised me to do exactly that - to inform my bank I was non-resident by filling out that form in order to get interest paid gross. What did the bank (ICICI) do? Tell me that they can't keep the account open if I am non-resident, and certainly the couldn't give me interest tax free.

So as far as I am concerned, the whole R40/43 forms are a complete scam designed to catch out those people who are non-resident and then to force them to close their accounts. Not that it was a big loss to lose my ICICI account - interest rate used to be nearly 7% there, and now it is just 1%... minus 20% tax, makes it only marginally better than keeping the money under the bed! In the end I just moved the money out and left the account open.

Anglo Irish called me today and said that money up to £50,000 is guaranteed by the Isle of Man government. I asked the lady what would happen if they failed to honour that agreement, and she said they wouldn't fail. So I pressed her and said what if they did. She said that then it would pass to the Irish government - but how could I know if they would honour it?

At the moment though, Anglo Irish is being bailed out by the Irish taxpayer, so it would be weird if, after all these billions of Euros have been poured into the bank, that the government would let it fail. Surely they have invested too much for that to happen?

Is it possible for just the Isle of Man (Anglo Irish International) part to fail, separately of the main Anglo Irish parent bank?

MacBiggles

Anglo (and its IoM subsidiary) is not only owned and controlled by but pivotal to the long-term viability of the government of the Republic of Ireland. The injection of funds has spiralled from 4,000m to 22,000m Euros and may yet top 35,000m, with the EU in tow ready, albeit reluctant, to pour in more cash if necessary. For Dublin, the debate is centred upon whether to rebuild the now-nationalised Anglo Irish Bank into a new flagship of Irish banking (which is still wobbly) or wind it down -- OVER AT LEAST TEN YEARS!!!! Anglo Irish Bank can borrow money at 2.5-3% which is a better deal than that on Irish gilts at 5.5 percent. All this suggests that Anglo Irish Bank (and the useful IoM presence) will be around for the foreseeable future and even nervous nellies can rest easy about Dublin's guarantees on their deposits. The larger issue is the RoI's unwise 100% guarantee on outstanding property loans. Now there's the real headache.

LillythePink

Why not just put your money into an offshore branch of a UK bank ie HSBC, Lloyds even dare I say it RBS!

My reasoning is that the UK govt won't let those banks fail (as proved by the amount of money pumped into them) and their offshore arms are highly lucrative because of people like yourself, so they won't want them to fail either.

There are guarantees offered by other offshore areas as well which have been bought in because of the Iceland problem.

Pensionable

I have had sterling and euro deposits with AIB for a number of years and have found them to one of the most efficient banks. Despite this, the news yesterday about the Irish Finance Minister meeting with EU officials to discuss withdrawing their nationlised status of the bank gave me the shivers and so I withdraw nearly all my savings. I am now looking for another deposit account and note that Alliance & Leicester International are offering similar rates as AIB so I am about to investgate this further.

njstone9

I moved my money out yesterday.

But Alliance & Leicester isn't right for me - their *minimum* withdrawal amount is £5,000 and I would need to keep £15,000+ in the account at all times.

Bradford and Bingley are the genius offshore account which you can't operate by internet - clearly they are not interested in people not based in the UK.

If someone knows of another offshore account with less stringent conditions, do let me know!

jackas

looking at the A+L Int offshore account though this is also only backed by the IOM Depositors Scheme and not the FCFS ??which is the UK equivalent so therefore should be wary of this also ?? although the rate is actually even more attractive,
Jackas

The_Ghost

Reading Investors concerns regarding Anglo Irish and the safety of their savings makes me wonder why no one is able to give a definitive answer to their question " are my savings safe" This is especially disturbing since prior to the Irish Scheme superceeding the UK FSCS in late 2008 everyone thought they would be covered, but then the goal posts were moved! Now we have the EU involved seeking to "wind down" the bank - splitting it into good & bad arenas and yet those savers with the Post Office( Bank of Ireland) are about to come back under the UK FSCS - why wont the UK Gov't come clean and say they will g'tee all savings made with foreign banks who operated in the UK and were covered by the FSCS at the time of their investment. Tho' AI have ben nationalised and is now owned by the Irish Gov't one cannot be confident that they will meet all their obligations or if they could not the EU would step in and compensate?

Lansdowne

Pensionable wrote: »

I have had sterling and euro deposits with AIB for a number of years and have found them to one of the most efficient banks. Despite this, the news yesterday about the Irish Finance Minister meeting with EU officials to discuss withdrawing their nationlised status of the bank gave me the shivers and so I withdraw nearly all my savings. I am now looking for another deposit account and note that Alliance & Leicester International are offering similar rates as AIB so I am about to investgate this further.

Please note, AIB is not Anglo Irish Bank it is Allied Irish Bank. This thread is about Anglo despite the title, if you have money with Allied Irish it is a completely different entity.

jackas

To clarify i am ta;lking about Anglo Irish Bank and have been told by their savings team that all deposits are guarantedd until 31st Dec 2010 however people on here seem to disagree and as a result i have also removed my savings here too to be safe it would have been nice to receive a definitive answer before i went to this trouble but unfortunately this was not possible ,but would still be nice to know what the score is as if it was deffo covered i would return it to give myself more time to find somewhere better to put it ...........
Jackas