Are your savings safe? article discussion

paranoidish

Some institutions confirm in their terms and conditions that they will reimburse a customer for any financial losses in the event of fraudulent activity on their online account where the customer has not been negligent.
However, others (such as the Derbyshire Building Society) are less clear on this point,
In the "Are Your Savings Safe" section could we please have a clear explanation on where we stand when using online accounts?

John_Pierpoint

I think I agree with Martin, there is a banking crisis brewing again.
It is feeling like 2008 again.
There are some (for now) super dooper rates on offer, especially from the lesser players.
EG 3% + being offered on instant access by Northern Rock and "Yorkshire bank" for ISA money.
We got a "begging" phone call from Northern Rock today.

I think this is because the banks are getting scared of lending to each other.

Time for the Old Lady of Thread-needle Street to dust down the lender of last resort manual again, while pumping out the £75 billion QE2 funny money?

"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

From the "When we were young/before we were born" history department:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,857085,00.html

keano22

We have a substantial amount invested in two bonds with santander that do not mature until 2013. I believe they might be off-shore investments in the Channel islands. Would I be panicking to shut them down and lose all the interest or is it too risky to leave the majority of our money in them if the bank gets into trouble. This investment was on the advice of their financial consultant

sabretoothtigger

You put a majority of your money into bonds with one company, doesnt sound a good idea to start off. Do these bonds have any link to a compensation scheme, this is also something to know beforehand

I dont think you have to sell Santander just because they are spanish, they are global really. Is it in Euros or pounds

wyndav

I am about to sell my business and retire abroad. I intend to put my money in a Swiss account until I find the ideal place to buy and settle down in. I intend to rent places in a few countries for a few months at a time to get more idea of what it's like living there.

However, I know that most of the banks in Europe are in deep S**T and the whole system could collapse at any time :mad:. I do not know if the Swiss banks are the same, hopefully, they are safer because so many people from around the world have deposits there.


It would depend on if those banks have been making risky gambles with those deposits. I would not consider using UBS, obviously, as I know that they have been a big gambling bank and I would not know what liabilities they have which might bring them down.

How would you check which banks are safer than others ? What deposits are protected there?

TIA

murphydavid

As Santander is a best buy for instant access how about updating the "is my bank linked" tool?

If you put in Santander you find Abbey Cahoot and Santander.

But if you click "read full details" you find "from May 2010 these banks now share one lot of £85,000 protection. So if you have more than £85,000 saved between Santander, A&L, B&B, Asda or Cahoot, then the excess isn't covered."

May 2010 is a long time ago now.

I think the full list is Abbey Cahoot Santander A&L, B&B, Asda and is no longer complex.

So
you could be caught out if you don't hit "read full details"
also if you read the full details and then forget Abbey (Which is in the initial search but not in the (not so) full details)
Another hiccup if your finances are sorted alphabetically and you look for banks linked with Alliance&L that does not appear in the search box.

Not a criticism just you are so good I tend to rely on you and I nearly got caught out.
Thanks for all the good work

Nick17

I'm trying to work out how the FSCS scheme covers (or not) the situation if you have a personal pension (eg stakeholder type) with the same institution that you use as a bank and for ISAs etc.

I understand that 90% of a pension fund is covered if the institution goes belly up and I understand up to £85k of savings per person (bank accounts and ISAs) are covered.

If you have both a pension fund and savings in the same institution, are both covers added together or is the total cover limited to the higher of the two figures?

atush

It is my understanding the 90% is the PPF for private company FS schemes, not for defined contribution pensions in which case the funds are held under the individual's name. In this case only cash on depoisit/univested would be at risk and all the actual equities are rfing fenced.

gunmaker

Apologies if this has already been asked and answered previously.

We read in the financial press that Santander UK is independent of it's Spanish parent company and should be protected from trouble in Spain. However, in the unlikely event Santander is affected by any Spanish financial crash, and an investor seeks reimbursement of cash invested in an Santander ISA will they:-

Get their money back from the FSCS in the form of a cheque, or will they be able to transfer it to another provider to retain the tax free interest on the whole sum?

If they are unable to transfer to it another provider the loss of tax free interest could be considerable.

Reaper

What happened with Icesave is they sent out a cheque plus a certificate saying the money was from an ISA. You could then open a new ISA with whoever you wanted sending off both cheque and certificate. This had no effect on your annual ISA allowance. You also got the full interest due so nobody lost out on their ISAs.