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I do my banking with Santander and also have my fixed rate mortgage (another year to go) with them. With the Eurozone on the brink, should I be worried / take any action re my Spanish provider?
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881I presume that you bank with Santander UK (ex Abbey, A&L, etc). If so then it is a UK regulated subsidiary and subject to the UK compensation scheme.
Their assets are over 90% invested in UK and have less than 1% exposure to foreign sovereign debt.
They should be safe, even if the parent co. goes under. However, I don't think that will happen either because the spanish portion is smaller than the UK portion and they have substantial Latin American operations.
My understanding is that the main downgradings recently were of small spanish banks apart from one, Bankia, which was a merger of several smaller local banks a few years ago.
Mike
Posted on 21 May 2012 |
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1i am with Santander online savings account and i am getting worried and i am now looking at putting my money with the Nationwide or the Post Office,i want an account in this country as i think my money should be safer.
Posted on 21 May 2012 | Love 1 love
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881 1Would the Nationwide be the best bet?
Posted on 21 May 2012 | Love 0 loves
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881
174Panic now just shows that folks have been too lazy to consider their finances in good time.
My thought FWW is that though deposits up to £85000 in uk registered groups of banks are safe as HMG and not one jot safer, BUT just because you will get your money back, does not mean you will get it back tomorrow or even the next day.
To protect against this eventuality everyone should have two current accounts with different banking groups, and savings split even further. One cannot tell which if any will break, so have a range of options and brass that can be moved to support spending needs. Lastly, secure some gold and silver coin. Preferably uk legal tender coin to avoid cgt.
If the currency melts down gold will go to the moon, and silver might even reenter circulation for a while. A 1oz silver coin, worth £20 now, could easily do temporary duty as a £50 note imho. Gold coins are too big to use to buy groceries unless you get very small ones which are prohibitively expensive imho.
1% of net wealth in gold will secure against a currency crash. Think of it as an insurance not an investment, unless you want more than 1% of course.
Then sit back and see what will actually happen - I doubt that any pundit will get it absolutely right.
Posted on 22 May 2012 | Love 0 loves
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40If Santander goes t1ts up, you will be covered up to 85 Gs by FSCS. My personal opinion is that Banco Santander will survive this, although it will probably take a bit of a battering. I agree with JoeEasedale that if you don't have physical gold and silver, you will be wiped out.
Posted on 25 May 2012 | Love 0 loves
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