Icesave - please think before you apply

climbgirl

sham63 wrote:

This issue is about boycotting Icelandic goods/services etc whether they have any direct links to whaling. It's a way of demonstrating to the Icelandic Government that you don’t agree with their decision to resume whaling - Surely it's not that difficult to grasp – the boycotting of a country’s goods is not a new concept.

It's not a particularly difficult concept to grasp at all - it's just that boycotting goods is a pretty ineffective way of protesting and it's rather short-sighted. The numbers of people who deliberately choose another account based purely on Iceland's whaling stance isn't going to impact hugely on Landsbanki's bottom line (unless this case bucks the trend of every other product boycott in history). So how they are even going to know you're taking this stance?

To pick on this one issue and not take a stance with every chinese based company/product because of their human rights record, us based comapny/product beacuse of the iraq war/afghanistan/guantanamo etc, smacks of hypocrisy.

There are far more effect and direct ways of raising your voice and protesting about this.

someone

To be honest, I think that boycotting a bank for something its government has done is a bit silly. The problem is that IceSave is a subsidy of Landsbanki. This is a new area for them to go into so it could just be seen as teething problems. If IceSave was already established then you could possible sway them a bit.

And FYI I do boycott RBS because of their lack of action regarding the NatWest 3

markw5

I am pleased to see that my post has raised so many voices both for and against. Everyone of them has good and bad points.
It's discussing issues such as these that raises awareness. Thank you all for taking so much 'interest'.
I am sure some will not invest as a result of my original post and some will, but we have all now seen the suggestions about the ways we can invest and be more environmentally aware at the same time.

A thougt - do ethical investment companies take note of this issue when making decisions on the companies they deal with?

climbgirl

markw5 wrote:

A thougt - do ethical investment companies take note of this issue when making decisions on the companies they deal with?

Apparently so, yes - there are some investment companies out there who will only make "ethical" investments. Although I believe that they have their own list of criteria as to what those are, so whether or not you agree with them all is another issue entirely!

Dziekanowski

Putting aside the ethical issues and the rights or wrongs of using the whaling issue as a factor to determine where to save your money, does anyone here know the next best 'clean payer' on the market after the Icesave account?

sham63

So you're “dead against the resumption of whaling in Iceland” and say that "there are far more effect and direct ways of raising your voice and protesting about this".

So, what are you doing?

sham63

Dziekanowski,

Does your Dad need instant access or can the money be tied up for 12 months?

alecpr

What about the UK Companies and others who invest in Iceland or have shares that Icelandic investment groups also have shares in . What about the people own businesses who's owners use Icesave, or the companies who have employees who bank using Icesave. What about other countries who have diplomatic relations with Iceland and other businesses based in those countries. The links are only marginally more tenuous than the ones implied. If we believe in the six degrees of seperation theory then you might aswell boycot yourself ;-)

I guess the point I'm makig is where exactly do you draw the line, do Icelandic banks really have a direct financial connection with the hunting of whales other than being based the in the same country?

tomstickland

At least write to the bank and the Iceland tourist board etc stating why you are concerned about their resumption of whaling.

[Deleted User]

This whaling thing is so emotive but there are better ways of going about a protest eg join greenpeace and write to the Icelandic press. Weren`t seal pups (note plural) killed around the islands so where is the protest about that?

Anyway we are staying with icesave and we are also keeping our holiday in Iceland next year. Better to speak with the horse`s mouth direct