I currently have a 6 figure sum in an ING account which is to be used as a deposit for a flat/house when i perceive the time to be right. I work in the commercial property investment sector and see a big fall.

The majority of this money is from my fathers estate. This therefore has a sensitive value and i am not contemplating investing in different asset classes that i have no expertise in as it forms part of his legacy.

Is this money generally safe being held in one account or should i hold smaller sums in a number of accounts to ensure against losing the lot should a bank go t1ts up. How incredibly unlikely is this scenario?? Should i be diversifying with the usual eggs in one basket theory even tho' this is a highly respected international bank?

Any sensible advice would be greatly appreciated.

If a bank goes tits up, there is some sort of insurance that means upto 30K is secure (might actually be 33K - can't remember exactly). Therefore you're probably better off splitting it.

I think it might be 90% upto 30K - but its around that level.

Can someone make the answer to this once a week question sticky?

Theres a better answer somewhere else...but here goes....

To recap.

The FSA in theory will 'back' the financial institution that goes under to a limit of around 32k. Its something like 100% of the first 30k and a percentage thereof.

Your covered per individual per financial institution. Joint accounts seem to be described a bit more vauguely.

The other lesser known policy is that its the ultimate 'legal entity' that is covered, not the commonly known high street brandname.

For example, say you had 1 account in Halifax and 1 in RBS. If the owning company HBOS went bust (extremely unlikely), then you are only covered once not twice.

Whether if it came to the crunch if the scheme works who knows. Also no timeframes seem to specified so they may opt to pay you back a £1 a week if they wanted to.

Hope this helps.

It's the first £2000 in full, plus 90% of the balance up to £35,000. This equates to a maximum of £31,700 per person per company.

http://www.fscs.org.uk/consumer/key_facts/...nsation_limits/



The sentiment behind this comment is correct, but RBS isn't part of HBOS. HBOS stands for Halifax Bank of Scotland. Bank of Scotland isn't the same as Royal Bank of Scotland.

The only 100% secure place is National Savings but their products aren't very competitive.
I have the bulk of my deposit in a cash ISA with these and have various sums (under £30000) spread about.
Eg. HSBC, Lloyds TSB, RBS, Halifax, Barclays, Nationwide, Bradford and Bingley, ING etc.
They are all different companies.

Okay. You have all your money in the bank. A bank goes tits up. You are covered.

How long is it going to take to get your money back ?

A week, a year, a decade, never ?

They aint going to give it back without a fight.

How would you survive short-term without the cash.

Same with fraud from an internet bank. You may be lucky and they pay up and hush it up to stop negative publicity, but say you have £250K in an internet account, you think they are going to pay up without a fight ? Any time soon ?

Yeah right.

Worst case scenario a BIG bank goes bust owing billions - you think the government will bail you out - dream on.

In fact if things get really bad, recession, slump, costly wars, what's to stop the government simply freezing the accounts of big bank accounts ?

Ken Dodd had the best idea....

Of course the likelihood of any of this happening is extremely small