Security of online savings a/cs versus passbook

Primrose

I generally believe one should go for the best interest rates on savings account, which generally seem to be offered by online accounts, but wonder how many people also keep some emergency savings in a passbook account. If there were some major terrorist or other disaster and the whole online network crashed, the scenario might occur where nobody could access their money for a considerable amount of time. I know institutions operate contingency planning but how do all you canny savers plan for this possible catastrophe - or do you just keep your fingers crossed and go for the best interest rates?

BruceyBonus

If the internet "crashed", then most branches probably wouldn't be able to access their central server; thus cash machines and computer terminals in branches probably wouldn't work either.

isofa

Nothing is 100% secure, and it never will be.

Local branches etc. may work if they have remote access syncronised when the networks are up, and still able to access data off-line.

I'd also assume all large banks and building societies use secure owned leased lines between buildings rather than than the Internet / VPN broadband tunnels to connect their buildings, not being utterly reliant on Internet infrastructure. However a disaster at an exchange or similar could cause a serious problem.

But if they use live network access, and rely on this 100% then BruceyBonus is correct, it's unlikely they'd work if major networks or infrastructure is down.

amcluesent

In the scenario you describe, numbers on bits of paper won't mean a thing. Water, spam, real cash, gold - that's what you need stashed away to survive.