Are my Savings safe? Discussion Area

starfish10

I am about to buy a 7% Abbey bond and am going to put in 150k do you think this bank is fairly safe for a year at least?

jamesd

Yes, Santander, the Spanish company behind Abbey, is a fairly safe bank. But there's no need to stick to one bank when more than one offers 7%, so you can reduce your risk by splitting the money. Particularly when there has been an increase in customer service complaints at Abbey since Santander took them over.

stingyscot

I am concerned by an article in the Sunday Times 10 Feb 08 indicating that foreign banks only use the FSA to 'top up' their compensation scheme, and that the first tranche is covered by the system in whatever country the bank is sited. e.g A saver with Icesave has the first £x of their deposits covered by the Icelandic authorities, and the remainder is then topped up to £35k by the UK authority. This means, apparently, that if it did fail, it would be a nightmare of red tape getting compensated, and could take years to do so.
Has the moneysavingexpert any comments?
Also, how safe are accounts in India (ICICI) and Nigeria (FirstSave) from the point of view of security of information?

tawse57

You could also ask yourself how safe is Egg? Is Egg a British bank? It has a FSA registration number but so do the Dutch, Icelandic and Nigerian banks? Hang on, Egg is owned by Citibank which is a US bank so how is Egg different to Icesave et al?

If you start looking into it in this way there are quite a few banks out there that we think are British but perhaps are not - and maybe that is just enough get out clause for UK Government not to refund savers.

Bottom line - savers are screwed by this desire amongst banks and Governments to prop up debtors.

Meltdown_2

Is Abbey a british bank or a spanish one?

jamesd

The accounts aren't in India or Nigeria. They are as privacy protecting as any bank that processes information abroad, as many do for functions not visible to consumers even if the call centers are in the UK.

The red tape would probably be handled by the authorities with a list of all account holders and balances more than by individual savers.

Meltdown_2

jamesd wrote: »

They are as privacy protecting as any bank ...

That's not very encouraging ...:rolleyes:

fisher-man_2

I have looked around for the Abbey 7% bond and can't see it in any best buy tables or on the Abbey site.

Anybody got a link or info?