Looking at all the reports across the news and last couple of months, the icelandic banks are strugglingquite sizeably....

Although they offer the best rates and ONLY A FEW are covered by FSA £35k rules....

Id rather take .2% lower than the hassle of if I am covered...

Good for you.

THE FULL FITCH REPORT
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01 Apr 2008 9:06 AM (EDT)



Fitch Ratings-London-01 April 2008: Fitch Ratings has today revised the Outlooks for the Republic of Iceland's Long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default ratings (IDR) to Negative from Stable. The Long-term foreign and local currency IDRs are affirmed at 'A+' and 'AA+' respectively, as is the Short-term IDR of 'F1' and the Country Ceiling of 'AA-' (AA minus).

The Outlook revisions follow Fitch's placement today of Iceland's three largest banks, Glitnir Banki hf., Kaupthing Bank hf. and Landsbanki Islands, on Rating Watch Negative (RWN).

"Should Fitch decide that the credit profile of Iceland's major banks has deteriorated, downward pressure on Iceland's sovereign ratings could result, if Fitch judges that the risks to macroeconomic stability and sovereign creditworthiness arising from distress in the banking system have materially increased," says Paul Rawkins, Senior Director in Fitch's London-based sovereign rating team.

Fitch says that, although the Icelandic authorities have recently issued a statement expressing their willingness to provide support to the banking system, as yet they have received no request nor judged that direct liquidity or any other support is required. The rating agency also reiterates that the sovereign's credit fundamentals remain strong, with net general government debt of just 8% of GDP, a succession of budget surpluses since 2004 and a very low debt service burden. In addition to this favourable credit profile, the authorities have a range of financial options open to them, including the issuance of foreign as well as domestic debt and draw downs of committed credit lines from major international financial institutions. Nonetheless, the sheer size of the Icelandic financial system - close to 900% of GDP on a consolidated basis at end-June 2007 - underscores the importance of appropriate and measured policy responses to banking distress that will provide support and restore confidence in the banks without imperilling sovereign creditworthiness.

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I don't think they are in any more trouble than any other bank. Although to be safe don't put more than 35k in.

I have 2 fixed rate bonds with them for 50k, when I called to try and cancel them I was told they are in there for the fixed term and nothing I can do about it.

So I will be hoping and praying

Hi UK,

Forgive me, but I don't understnd your rationale.

You say put no more that £35k in but have two bonds totalling £50k each.

You just felt lucky or had to much cash and decided to double up?

I'm bucking the trend and put some money INTO an Icelandic bank.

Its only 300 squids - I may move the bulk of my savings if the UK rates fall further.

Wow, i cant wait for the tears...

When someone posts they cant even get their money out , you pretty much know they are F*CKED

Any fixed in the UK, you can break terms with penalties...

BULLTRADER: HE IS ADVISING YOU NOT TO PUT MORE THAN £35K AS A LESSON LEARNT...

If you enter into a bond and that's the rules then I don't quite understand why the fuss?

It doesn't say in the bonds terms that you can withdraw from the bond prematurely does it?

So..... I think people might be getting all hot under the collar. Time will of course tell.

14. Terms and Conditions applicable to Fixed Rate Savings Accounts
14a. The minimum balance is £1,000.
14b. Interest rates are fixed and will not change during the term of the Savings Account.
14c. Following an initial deposit into a Fixed Rate Savings Account, no further deposits, withdrawals or closures are permitted during the fixed rate term. Any additional deposit must be placed in a new Fixed Rate Savings Account and will be subject to the terms and conditions and features for that account.
14d. We will contact you prior to maturity to advise you of the options open to you. If we do not receive a reply from you before the maturity date of your Fixed Rate Savings Account, we will place the proceeds of your Fixed Rate Savings Account in an Easy Access Savings Account. If you do not have an Easy Access Savings Account we will open one on your behalf.

Here's the terms, nothing suspicious here.

May I ask whose product these are the T&Cs for?

Hi O J,

If you go on their website and have a look @ their T & C's you'll see its for their Fixed rate Bonds.

There's a few posters on here which have a fixed rate bond for 6 months. Some may have them for longer.

I've a six month fixed. Matures in Jun.

Whose website please? I was asking in my last post which bank. Sorry if this should be obvious to me.

Sorry, IceSave's.

I put the money into bonds 6 months ago with icesave before the credit crunch had kicked in. Now I would not take out any more fixed rate bonds or put more than 35k into any savings account until things settle down how ever long that will be.

I will just have to monitor things and hope for the best. I didnt read the small print. With a bank you normally lose 90 days interest if you pull your money out before the term ends.

Same here. Good Luck to us both.

So where do you have your money?
Your attitude makes me almost physically sick.
This website is geared for, and populated by, those who have been either waiting patiently for prices to soften/ crash, or those that sold when they saw which way the wind was blowing.
Ergo, theres a lot of people on here who will have likely put their money safely in to cash.
I dare say theres a good few, me included, who have deposited large chunks with Icesave.

If you take pleasure in waiting for the tears of savers who have had the fortitude to take wise decisions with their money, then you mate are one twisted f**k. Whats the point of getting up in the morning if we were to live by your view of the world?
Especially when Iceland is clearly being targeted by Hedge Funds. You dont work for one of them by any chance?

We may as well all give up if our cash disappears.
Hopefully i'll have enough left for a gun and a map.

Get lost. Creep.

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Very well said! We are here to help and advise each other not to take pleasure in a persons misfortune. The Icelandic banks have come through crashes in the past. It would be highly unlikely all 4 would go bust. Indeed the Icelandic government have funds ready should they need it. Which they have not requested as yet.

What people forget, yes their currency has dropped 25%, but that has a very positive side. Iceland used to be a VERY expensive country which most people could not afford to visit, now they can! They have a wealth of natural resources (geothermal, aluminium).

These Hedge funds bet on a bank going down, so they put as much bad publicity out as possible to set panic among people.

The lesson I have learned is dont put all your eggs in one basket. As no bank is 100% safe. I got used to thinking that banks were totally safe until the credit crisis, but there we go.

Cheers
Still cant quite believe what i see posted on here by some people.
Staggered.
Blinkered, twisted, small time, sad cases. And every bit as avaricious and greedy as the people they aim to ridicule.
Theyre just having to wait a bit longer thats all.

Products of Thtchers britain one and all. Soulless Trash. Like 75% of this country.

edited

Are you guys actually from Iceland??

A suspicious number of low posts for both...7 and 8...

And read the goddam thread...

Other foreign banks - such as Icelandic giant Landsbanki, which runs the popular Icesave account - aren't part of the FCSS scheme. Instead they work under a less attractive 'passport' system where they run the equivalent of a UK branch from their home country.

This scheme gives them European Economic Area (EEA) authority rather than full FSA authority. This means that if the bank were to go bust you would get part of the compensation from the home state's compensation scheme. This sum would then be topped up by the FSCS up to a maximum of £35,000.

Off-topic: I do like your avatar -- a lovely, soft, cuddly bear throwing out love and kindness and good wishes...

DelBoypass,

Mate, please relax.

We hear what you are saying, we do, but there is nothing we can currently do if our cash is wrapped up in a six or 12 month bond is there?

If there was I'm sure one or two of us would have gone down that route.

But as I posted, you CAN'T WITHDRAW ANY CASH before the term ends as it's in the T's & C's.

What else can one say on the subject?

And if your "UK bank" crashes and you lose your money and people post statements like "cant wait for the tears" and it applies to you, you'll still think thats a fair thing to say? Idiot.
Maybe you started out trying to warn others but you failed to keep a lid on your blatant scahdenfreude by the end of your post. Dont try and portray yourself as warning others, you got a bit excited, admit it.
I'm in largely the same position as you, except i choose not to glory in other peoples potential misfortune.
Theres a raft of difference between recent, idiot BTL people and those that have sold and stashed their cash.
If financially aware people, with good judgement, lose their money in this way, then we have little left to cling to. Our cash will, quite literally, be better off under the bed, and your facile, snide,small minded, hateful comments will be even less welcome or relevant.

Im English btw.

Lets take the fight to them and not between ourselves...apologies...just getting frustrated wrt the current situation in the UK Government policies.

Right you are chief. Its been a long wait. I got out in 2002, then back in again for cash outright in 2003/4.

If i lose my residual life savings as a result of others financial mismanagement:
I will be signing on, purchasing an over and under shotgun and several cases of "shells".
I think you could call that "taking the fight".
If this government allow the shrewd, responsible people, who took no risks with their, or other peoples money, to lose large amounts of capital, the ensuing hoo haa will make the poll tax riots look like a fonkin tea party.
Browns head will be on a stick.

There will be blood.

Best o luck.

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Im also going to complain to what investment seeing as Icesave were declared best savings account 2007 by them. I'm just a Joe Blogs who doesnt know much about it, they need to be a lot more careful who they go giving awards to. I'll sue them.

Also, the EU bank has said they will lend money to the Icelandic banks should they need it which is good news.

With my tin-foil hat firmly in place, if there really is a conspiracy of central bankers, a more prominent role for the EU Central Bank would seem to be exactly the kind of thing they'd want to engineer...

Telegraph -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtm...06/ccimf106.xml



One for the UK aswell?

I feel sympathy for those on here locked into FRB's with Icesave in the current climate of 'uncertainty' and although my post relates mainly to Kaupthing, I hope it may be useful to others.

I recently opened both an instant access account and FRB with Kaupthing but nervous about what I heard thru posts on HPC and thru Bloomberg about the potential situation in Iceland, I quickly moved the £35k back out of my Kaupthing FRB. Kaupthing's penalty on early withdrawal/closure of their FRB's is a 1% penalty on interest due.

I was also in the process of transferring my ISA to Icesave which I managed to reverse the day before the cash was due to be transferred by my bank!

This chart from MSE gives some clear info on which overseas accounts use the 'passport system' and which have the FSCS protection.



Iceland Bank Default Swaps Rise Amid 'Unscrupulous Speculating' - Bloomberg

Tucksy

You feel so much sympathy you thought you'd post here with a few graphs to try to make it appear worse.
Well done.
Now back to your hedge fund.....

F**K OFF.

Not a helpful post as you indicate.

I'm sorry you feel such hostility but I was just trying to point out that I would be in the same situation if I hadn't been fortunate enough to stumble upon certain information at just the right time. Thanks largely to other posters on HPC.

I've never posted anything on here with the intention of making other people feel worse about any situation they may be in and many of us on here (including myself) rely on other's experiences and posts to help us make some of our decisions. I believed that the chart may clear up any confusion relating to compensation from the Icelandic banks and that this bore some real relevance to the topic of the thread.

By the way, I'm not involved in hedge funds or any other kind of 'professional' investments. In fact like so many others you'll find on here, I'm just a regular person who is looking for the best way to invest their money (I still have a Kaupthing savings account) with the hope of being able to buy a property (to live in) in the relatively near future.

I was a video support engineer but have not worked since 2005 due to illness...

Oh look de de da da de da de da I'm great you are not.....yeah yeah, I'd believe you, thousands wouldn't.

Believe me or not, I'm in no better, wiser position and just as nervous about my savings as many people on HPC.

Also, I would willingly trade anything monetary or material I have to be in good health again...

I'm happy to keep my cash in Icelandic banks. No more than 35k per bank of course.

I also have savings in Icesave and was concerned to read this topic however I do believe that again the media is to blame for scaremongering. I do believe there is a concerted effort into keeping money in UK banks.

After reading the Icesave website and the Moody's ratings and checking these definitions on the web I feel much happier - check for yourselves!

I have a few K in Kaupthing Edge but I think the first 36K is still guaranteed so should be ok and the rate is 6.5%

Yeah, I'm quite happy with keeping up to 35k with Icesave too, I find them brilliant so I'm not in any hurry to move away from them.

Rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic never worked then, so why should it work now? Far for me ramp-up the shiny yellow stuff, but there is only one way....... "Protect Yourselves". 100% guaranteed.

BTW. I have a few crumbs in Icesave myself (a grand). Instant access through - would not have it any other way.

If things get too bad theres a chance that you could have to wait a couple of years or more to get all your 35k's back lol. Then you have to trust the other countries who have your money to give their part back
All for a sake of a percentage or two profit that would be more than lost while you were waiting to get your monies back.
Greed stuffs most people.

Ask yourselves, "would I trust this bankrupt government and its perverse policies."

Tears and regrets spring to mind.

This would not appy to Kaupthing as they signed up to the FSCS but I don't think Icesave did so they may only have EEA authority. This may be worth looking into.

I think I read on here somewhere that there was a yarly limit as to how much could be paid out in any one year.
I dont think Gordons going to knock anyones door and say "so sorry for being a dick for the past ten years heres your 35k that you had in blah blah", Should read La La land

Would you trust any bankrupt government? Why not hedge your bets against two?

You know
You can give as many facts as you like and try and give someone the true picture, but they will just give you abuse. They are impossible to get through to. If and when it goes wrong they will probably blame you or the goverment or anyone but themselves. This is classical denial.

This is exactly the same as a number of BTLers at this time, uncanny isnt it.

I worked hard for my money mate. It wasnt a STR fund.
I did that in 2001, bought again in 2004.
My money was stuck in a bond which i couldn't touch.
£69k to be precise.
My point at the time was, that posting stuff like that was likely to speed the demise.
Looks like you were right.

Well done.
See you on the other side.

My money was stuck in a bond which i couldn't touch.

Sorry to hear that.
Wonder if the uk government will extend amount of compensation? You never know we live in strange times