Are your savings safe? article discussion

John_Pierpoint

Ask the IMF (sorry cheap joke). My understanding is that the government of Ireland is guaranteeing it?
There will be a lot of Irish people over here as refugees if Ireland goes bust, so I would very much expect money to be found to compensate account holders for "normal" deposits.
If you have 250,000 I would move it, so as to get a good night's sleep.

ELLIESLUG_2

So, are you telling me that you don't think that my money is safe. If so, on what grounds?

John_Pierpoint

No money is ever completely safe.
Ask anyone who had money in Britain in the 1970's (or now perhaps, if you have retired to (say) Spain).
As explained in this article Ireland was forced to pay a 2% risk premium compared with the same investment in Germany.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/08/ireland-banks-shares-recession
I have a wife who was invested in Iceland (for less than 50K) but there was still a load of hassle about transferring the investment back to the UK, even when the UK government had invoked the terrorism act.
It is just a matter of risk and reward I suppose.

alared

Quickie.
Marks and Spencer Savings,are they independant or run by another bank.

Baldur

alared wrote: »

Quickie.
Marks and Spencer Savings,are they independant or run by another bank.

http://www6.marksandspencer.com/pages/default.asp?PageId=LI&Product=AU

Marks and Spencer Financial Services plc.Marks & Spencer Money and Your M&S are trading names of Marks and Spencer Financial Services plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of HSBC Bank Plc. Registered office: Kings Meadow, Chester, CH99 9FB. Registered in England No 1772585. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority and entered in the FSA register as No. 151427.

They are separately authorised by the FSA - http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmRefSearch.do

belavista

While the government guarantees cash ISAs are they guaranteeing the initial investment or the value of the ISA plus accrued interest?
belavista

LongTermLurker

belavista wrote: »

While the government guarantees cash ISAs are they guaranteeing the initial investment or the value of the ISA plus accrued interest?
belavista

The value of everything you have with that institution - there is no difference between cash ISAs and any other deposit/savings/bank account - you're covered up to a total of £50000

JimmyTheWig

belavista wrote: »

While the government guarantees cash ISAs are they guaranteeing the initial investment or the value of the ISA plus accrued interest?
belavista

I believe accrued interest is guaranteed (as long as the whole lot is under £50k).

EMH_4

As an expat living in Spain I lost a great deal of cash with KSFIOM Gordon Brown tells me I should have invested in the UK instead of offshore. So, being back in the UK living in a house that I have owned for 12 years I decided to invest here, only to be told by most of the Building Soc. that I could not open a Bond account because I was not living in the UK permanantly and I was paying taxes in Spain. HSBC also told me that it was against the law to even give me financial advice!
Any comments would be appreciated as I would have thought that the Government here, for what it is worth, would have welcomed my money.

MarkyMarkD

I am disappointed, quite seriously, that Martin is still banging on with misleading stuff like "100% safe 3.75% savings" regarding Northern Rock.

There are two reasons for this:

(1) is that there is no way that the government will let any retail investor in any UK financial institution lose money, irrespective of the (frankly irrelevant) £50k FSCS limit. The political consequences of lots of grannies losing their cash is simply too great.

(2) Northern Rock may be 100% government guaranteed right now, but that will quite possibly end the minute it is privatised again. So anyone investing money for a fixed term of one year - or more - may be rendered "unprotected" (to the extent that this means anything - see (1)).

So, the claim (implied or actual) that it's safer to invest in NR than anywhere else is flawed for two reasons - nobody will lose money anywhere, anyway, and NR will not necessarily remain even theoretically safer than anywhere else, during the term of a fixed rate investment.

Poor "advice", Martin.

Anyone investing in NR at 3.75% because of the spurious benefit of 100% government underwriting, as a result of a blog headline, is being severely short-sold. They should invest elsewhere at higher yields.


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As an aside, it is completely unfair on other financial institutions that NR is able to take advantage of this spurious non-benefit. So for people like Martin to encourage it is even more unfair on other financial institutions.