Ex-pat savers accuse Brown of 'stealing cash'

Friday, 24 October 2008 05:25

UK ex-pat savers are accusing Gordon Brown of "illegally taking cash" held in Guernsey and Isle of Man accounts after the collapse of Icelandic banks.

The government guaranteed losses held by UK savers - with Icesave savers seeing all their savings protected and Heritage and Kaupthing Edge savers having accounts transferred to ING Direct.

However, savers at Icelandic banks based in Guernsey and the Isle of Man - and thus not covered by Financial Services Authority (FSA) or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) - were not so lucky.

A total of 12,000 lost nearly £1 billion in the offshore arms of Icelandic banks.

But ex-pats claim they had not option but to invest in these accounts, as current rules bar them from saving in UK banks.

Savers at Landsbanki Guernsey, Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander Bank (Isle of Man) are among those suffering.

Part compensation is now being offered in Guernsey and Isle of Man - but how long it will take and how much will be paid out is still not clear.

Currently 30p in the pound is expected to be returned to depositors from Landsbanki in Guernsey - liquidators Deloitte & Touche has announced.

In the Isle of Man plans to compensate the first £50,000 of savings are now on hold as the case to wind up Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander has been delayed until November 27th to allow talks between the local authorites and the UK government to be concluded.

Savers in the Kaupthing Singer Isle of Man now claim the bank was told to shift assets to London ahead of the crisis by the FSA. When the government froze assets of Kaupthing, they claim the Isle of Man bank was left without funds.

They are now calling on funds to be returned.

Margaret Baker, one Kaupthing saver, said: "Many of us face bankruptcy, or at best seriously threatened financial futures not because we are 'greedy tax dodgers' as some would like to think but because we thought that we were doing the best for our families/dependants or just ourselves by putting our savings/earnings in an account that offered good rates of returns.

"Many of the depositors work and live outside the UK and are not allowed to have accounts on the mainland, others live and work on the Isle of Man, others still had their money in UK Building societies that then transferred their funds to the Isle Of Man."

She added: "There are many stories behind these accounts but the common thread is that everyone is now facing financial hardship, or, worse still, potential ruin."

One disgruntled saver has now issued a rap to highlight the cause.

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