Goldman Sachs MARCUS savings account

ColdIron

Amongst our concerns are ...

Avenarius

...I'll come in again

EachPenny

RG2015 wrote: »

EachPenny, thanks for this and whilst what qualifies as ‘adequate’ is subjective, I accept that only a few were negligent.

The point I was trying to make was that if any shame was evident it was with (some) local authorities and not the final outcome as asserted by the OP.

Agreed.

Although for those involved in it (as I was, but not as a finance officer) one of the drivers of LA's making what might be termed 'risky investments' was the pressure applied by the Government of the day - through the Audit Commission - to be less conservative (small 'c') and consider less-traditional behaviour/investments as part of modernising.

A Local Authority adopting a conservative investment strategy ('gambling' with Marcus perhaps ) could expect to be marked down in their next Comprehensive Performance Assessment (i.e. if you weren't sufficiently 'radical' and 'innovative' then you were thought to be 'weak').

And of course the Audit Commission themselves had £10m of public money in Icelandic banks. :whistle:

badger09

Avenarius wrote: »

...I'll come in again

in a nice red uniform?

colsten

carlh93sky.com wrote: »

UK Treasury never got the bail-out money back from Iceland.

Untrue. It's all been settled back in early 2016. Google is your friend.

Masomnia

I think it's true to say that yield is a function of risk, or should be. The yield on Greek debt is higher than German debt as they are perceived as more risky and investors demand a premium. In theory if they have to offer higher rates to attract savers it should be because as a saver you are taking on more risk.

Deposit protection massively skews the market here, and in the case of the Icelandic banks people could save their money with much more risky operations without actually shouldering that risk themselves. They should not have been bailed out in my view, and just had what was covered under the passport scheme; it creates perverse incentives to bail people out.

The savings market is different though as they will attract funds with a teaser rate and then cut it back or let it fall behind when someone new comes to the market. As others have said it's not an especially high rate when there are others with returns a tenth of a percent lower and you can get a lot more by fixing.

Goldman Sachs is a big name and they want the publicity (and the cash) so it's understandable that they'd offer a table-topping rate. I opened one yesterday and am impressed so far.

londoninvestor

isasmurf wrote: »

Icesave was part protected by the FSCS. The first approx. £16k was covered by the Icelandic scheme with the remainder up to the FSCS limit by the FSCS. HM Treasury loaned FSCS the money to cover balances over the FSCS limit.

And Kaupthing Edge was protected by the FSCS to the same extent as any other UK deposit account. Landsbanki/Icesave operated as a UK branch of an Icelandic entity; Kaupthing Edge operated from a UK entity which was a subsidiary of an Icelandic parent.

I actually moved money out of Icesave and into Kaupthing Edge because of that. Happy days

Peelerfart

I bailed out of icesave too, just before the collapse, luckily.

I don't think I'll need to do the same from Marcos.

A ridiculous comparison IMHO.

Reaper

RG2015 wrote: »

Surely the shameful outcome only applied to savers who allowed their greed to outweigh their common sense.

Did you know every personal saver got all their money back from Iceland PLUS all the interest? In fact those with fixed term accounts were allowed to keep them running until the end of the term and get the generous rate of interest for the full term.

What's more the FSCS guarantees are now better and clearer than they were those days.

Nobody saving with a FSCS backed bank needs to pour over the accounts of the parent company before going ahead, though I'd be amused if you tried to do so with Goldman Sachs.

soulsaver

Reaper wrote: »

Did you know every personal saver got all their money back from Iceland PLUS all the interest?

We're straying off topic here..but:

I wasn't aware of that. Got a link?

There are a few on here (FTAOD, not me) that think savers shouldn't have been reimbursed at all.

There were reports that an individual had £360k in one Icelandic account.

If they got all that back I'll be betting they support Labour for a long time.