Landsbanki Guernsey savers may lose everything
October 13th, 2008 piotr zukowskiThousands of British savers with Landsbanki Guernsey may not get their money
back, it emerged today.
Thousands of British savers with Landsbanki Guernsey may not get their money
back, it emerged today.
How easy life used to be. Need to raise money? Take out a loan. Fancy a second
home in the country and need a mortgage? No problem. Not any more. The
global financial crisis has brought an abrupt end to the days of cheap
credit.
Sales of household safes have surged as wealthy savers concerned about the
health of banks opt to keep cash at home.
The first signs of respite for consumers came yesterday as a slump in the price of crude oil held out the prospect of lower prices for fuel and food.
Paul and Amanda Davis have worked hard all their lives to bring up their three
children, but they do admit to having succumbed to the buy-now-pay-later
culture, and now find themselves with £50,000 of unsecured debt.
Greed and fear are more often associated with stock market investment than
with savings, but over the past few years savers have swung dramatically
from one to the other.
Alliance & Leicester was fined £7 million this week for mis-selling payment
protection insurance (PPI).
Want to know how governments are faring with their efforts to bail out the
banking system? You will be forgiven for thinking that you need look no
farther than the leading stock market indices. If the FTSE, Dow or Nikkei
rise, the world heaves a sigh of relief. If they fall - as they have with
alarming frequency over the past year - the depression deepens.
In May £2,000 was taken fraudulently from my NatWest current account via a
telephone banking transaction. I noticed and my account was frozen. The
previous month I had responded to an e-mail claiming to be from NatWest
asking for my security details. I thought nothing of it, as I had asked
NatWest for a new security code.
The £50 billion bailout of UK banks looks, at first sight, like a bitter pill
to swallow for private investors.