Are your savings safe? article discussion

Conrad

I phoned HSBC in a pannic this morning and asked them whether they are Chinese or UK owned. No one knew! In the end they called me back and said Chinese.

This gave me confidence to remain. Had they said British I was going to withdraw my cash and put in a UK Building Society (no BS has ever gone bust).

The Chinese Goverment is sitting on trillions in cash so I feel of the Banks HSBC should be safe - but Im still not certain.

If I had cash in HBOS I would be queing to get it out now. You cant be certain the Govt would bail them out - afterall the Govt is running short of cash

Heinz

HSBC = Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corporation.

tradetime

stilernin wrote: »

Hi, I am not sure if this is the right thread for this, but in the light of what is happening to the banks I welcome your views...............

I am on the verge of exchanging on a house for which I'll be paying cash and was hoping for a few weeks before completion to get a few more quid in interest.

At the moment I have £50k in A&L Plus Saver, £100k in Online Saver and £20K in my current account ready pay deposit. In the next few weeks I would need to gather in a further £12 from some ISAs.

What would you all do?

A&L is about to be acquired by Banco Santander, in a deal due to complete next month, if it were me, I'd leave it where it was given the timespan is a couple of weeks. Where exactly do you imagine your solicitor is going to keep it? Think about it.

tradetime

Conrad wrote: »

I phoned HSBC in a pannic this morning and asked them whether they are Chinese or UK owned. No one knew! In the end they called me back and said Chinese.

This gave me confidence to remain. Had they said British I was going to withdraw my cash and put in a UK Building Society (no BS has ever gone bust).

The Chinese Goverment is sitting on trillions in cash so I feel of the Banks HSBC should be safe - but Im still not certain.

If I had cash in HBOS I would be queing to get it out now. You cant be certain the Govt would bail them out - afterall the Govt is running short of cash

Some reading for you, everything is not always what it seems, best short-list those building societies. .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC

jubev

Where do endowments fit when it comes to government protection of savings and investments when the financial institution goes bust? Does the K35 guarantee apply to endowments or do they fall under the catagory of pensions? I'm particularly interested in Norwich Union's position in this respect. Does any one know?

stilernin

Thanks Heinz and tradetime, I have spoken to the solicitor and yes, I get interest from the 'deposit' of my money and it would be covered by their indemnity insurance if everything went down the pan.

I suppose I just need to keep everything crossed until I get the key.

Thanks again

dunstonh

jubev wrote: »

Where do endowments fit when it comes to government protection of savings and investments when the financial institution goes bust? Does the K35 guarantee apply to endowments or do they fall under the catagory of pensions? I'm particularly interested in Norwich Union's position in this respect. Does any one know?

Endowments are not deposits and are therefore not protected under the deposit protection scheme. They are protected under the life and pensions protection scheme. That is 100% of first £2000 and 90% of the rest with no upper limit.

However, if you have a unit linked investment then you really dont have to worry about protection as the units are ringfenced within a company. Conventional with profits funds are at risk with the company but the above limit applies.

Thanks to the equitable life issues many years ago, the FSA insisted that insurers meet stronger solvency requirements and this places the UK insurers in a very good position. Plus most investments for a good many years now have been unit linked so that should really take a lot of your concern away.

uncthebunc

I am administering an estate together with a co-executor and have opened an executor's account to collect the money in, pay any outstanding bills and debts and distribute the entitlements. Since the estate included the sale of a house it involves considerably more than £35,000. Does anyone know if there is any special protection for executors' accounts should the bank go bust during the, hopefully brief, period that the money is in there?

jojobreeze

Have been watching the HBOS situation with growing alarm.

I am a Birm Midshires mortgage customer and back in June I extended my mortgage by 100k to pay for an extension to the house.

The work was subsequently put back and I therefore placed the money on 3 month deposit in July with - guess who - the Halifax. July seems like a long long time ago now. I can't touch the money till next month, and as 24 hours seems like a long time at the moment I'm starting to panic.

I have a 25k ISA with Halifax which eats up most of the FSCS allowance Martin refers to.

I have seen the thinking about the rules for offset accounts, but does anyone know for sure whether I would be:

a) less stuffed - someone uses my 100k to repay the loan
b) stuffed - end up owing someone the 100k but get only 10k of the cash back
c) double stuffed as b) applies and then whoever takes over my 100k debt tells me it was a specific loan for house improvements I can't afford any more and demands it back

As I understand it, it depends on the relationship between Halifax and BM, but how on earth do you work that out and presumably its irrelevant that the FSCS thinks they are the same organisation.

YorkshireBoy

jojobreeze wrote: »

...does anyone know for sure

Your best source of information is the FSCS themselves...

https://www.fscs.org.uk