OT Santander.

[harryagain]

I wonder how safe your money is in Santander these days?

[PeterC]

AIUI Santander in UK is (financially) separate from Santander in Spain.

[Hugh - Was Invisible]

The UK Santander is covered for about GBP85,000 per person for most types of accounts by the UK authorities.

[Andy Burns]

a) they're supposedly one of the better Spanish banks

b) They're covered (up to £85k) by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme

[Dave Liquorice]

There is something about the FSCS in relation to joint accounts and how they work with other accounts held by the same people, individually, with the same organisation. I think you have to make sure that the sum of all accounts is not over the limit unless you only want some of your cash back.

[Hugh - Was Invisible]

Each person has a GBP85,000 limit. If a person has a number of accounts with the same authorised banking group the limit is GBP85,000 in total.

There are details of which banks are separate on the moneysavingexpert site:

example Santander includes Cahoot and Abbey.

[Dave Liquorice]

ISTR some little gotcha with joint accounts and how the balance in a joint account contributes to the total. I have a sneaky feeling that the whole balance counts to both parties not as one might expect 50%.

Another gotcha...

Just a heads up for people that the FSCS is not quite as straight forward as it might first appear.

[Nightjar]

If you are worried, move your money to the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, who were, until the banking crisis revealed HSBC as one of the few high street banks with more assets than liabilities, often criticised as being overly cautious in their investments.

Colin Bignell

[stuart noble]

Bunch of wimps :-)

[Alan]

In message , Another Dave wrote

I also started with Williams & Glynns and stayed when taken over by RBS. I too moved my account when RBS informed me that my account would be taken over by Santander. Two other people I know have jumped ship when told about the sale. I wonder how many accounts will be left to transfer :)

[geoff]

Phoned them up today just to see what their raes were (I don't always trust tables with their bonuses etc

Flexible saver - 0.5% interest ...

that's not a saver, it's a loser account

[Nightjar]

Are there banks that offer better for a similar type of account? From a cursory wander around some of the other banks' web sites, if you exclude any introductory bonus, that seems to be about normal, with some variation up or down in some banks, depending upon the amount invested, for a fully flexible instant access savings account.

Colin Bignell

[PeterC]

Yes - I've now had to use 4 separate banks to be on the safe side.

[PeterC]

Any rate that is nett less than inflation is a loser (so all of them). To take income and not lose is impossible.