How safe is my money in a Spanish bank?

How safe is my money in a Spanish bank?

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Should I transfer the money from my Santander account to a UK bank? 

Replies (11)

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By zebaa
22nd Jun 2012 17:18

Depends...

... on several things, including if you have more than £85,000 in there. Up to that amount is protected by the British Govenment deposit scheme.

If you are REALLY downbeat about the whole Euro thing and think that there may be a domino effect with Spain, Italy & others going down, then consider perhaps France and - in the theme of gotterdamerung - Germany. Where do you think we will end up? 

Ah, well at least you have got your allotment, with the potatoes coming along nicely. Er,... you HAVE got an allotment, right?

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the sea otter
By memyself-eye
22nd Jun 2012 18:07

Santander UK?

If the UK named Santander (trading as CO-Op bank and Alliance and Leicester) you are covered by the £85k gurantee - it is in fact safer than it's Spanish parent.

If the money is with the Spanish Santander then check on the FSA website where all the UK banking licence holders are listed. If it's not there I would start worrying......

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By taxhound
22nd Jun 2012 18:22

I am with Santander

And not too worried, although I have paid my corporation tax early, so those nice(!) chaps at HMRC will give me interest too (at a better rate than Santander...)

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By 3569787
03rd May 2016 17:55

Put it in?????

.

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By User deleted
22nd Jun 2012 19:13

Bank of Flash

I've got room under my mattress if anyone wants to invest with me!

Interest rates are fab - well, as in I take a great interest in how much I have stored there and pop upstairs regularly to gaze at it. And it's very secure - the dog tells me if a squirrel is on the fence so I think I'll get advance warning of thieves.

So ask your existing banks for wadges of £50s and send them to Flash Gordon, Quarterback - NY Jets, Saviour of the Universe, Earth. I promise I'll save every man, every woman, every child, every penny, every pound....

Oh and you only have 14 hours to save your money :) 

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Time for change
By Time for change
23rd Jun 2012 08:08

At least with Santander

you should know, on a day to day basis, how much you've got with them.

For those of us with NatWest, these last few days, we've really no idea!

Talk about "helpful" banking.

This episode really does show the complete and utter reliance we have now, as a society, on information technology and, the downside of having no plan B.

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By Marion Hayes
23rd Jun 2012 16:06

Not strictly true Time for Change

Over the Jubilee bank holiday Santander apparently did not update their balances either for a few days so Nat West are not alone. One  client paid his VAT twice as the payment did not show the first time so he assumed it had failed - not uncommon I gather - I was informed by HMRC when I rang to ask for a refund that they had a lot of such requests!!

and it is not all Nat West customers - my transactions seem to have worked fine so far thank goodness

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By Phil Rees
24th Jun 2012 12:32

Thanks for all the replies

The point is that I don't want to rely on the guarantee because of the likely delay between the cash becoming unavailable and the govt paying up.

 

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By thomas34
24th Jun 2012 13:41

Santander

I suspect you've got your money with Santander UK which is just as safe as Lloyds etc. as far as the deposit guarantee scheme is concerned. There is a school of thought that the Spanish parent company may seek to raid the UK bank's funds to prop themselves up but there is also the view that the UK company is sufficiently autonomous to resist them.

I don't recall what inconvenience Northern Rock's depositors had when HMG bailed them out but believe disruption was minimal.

I've certainly got a couple of thousand under the mattress (literally) in case of any disruption caused if my banks get found out by their customers who realise that their (audited) balance sheets are carrying toxic assets.

 

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Locutus of Borg
By Locutus
24th Jun 2012 16:43

Probably about as risky or as safe as most of the others

Santander UK is supposed to be financially independent of its Spanish holding company, so even if Santander Spain goes under then it doesn't necessarily mean that Santander UK will.

Although I certainly wouldn't be keeping more than £85k in any UK bank at the moment.

No idea whether the £85k guarantee will be worth anything if the whole banking system collapses, though.  But at least we still have our own currency so we can print a few hundred billion if we need to prop up our system.

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By NBWNBW
28th Jun 2012 10:58

£85,000 protection

I had deposited money with Icesave when that went belly up.  I remember being pleasantly surprised at how quickly the compensation scheme settled - it was around 2 to 3 months, which was a lot quicker that I expected.

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