My bank account (RBS)

[x-Cheer-x]

I have a Royal Bank of Scotland account. It's a student account and I don't use it all that much except to deposit money for rent, which then goes straight to the estate agent via a direct debit. But I keep reading today about how RBS is in trouble, so should I be worrying (because I am!) if I don't have savings per se?

[Buenchico]

All funds held in all UK personal bank accounts are guaranteed by the government (which now effectively owns 70% of RBS anyway).

Unless the entire country goes bankrupt (i.e. the government runs out of money at the same time as the banks) you've got nothing to worry about.

Chris

[Ethel]

All funds up to �50000 per person, per financial institution

[naomi24]

It isn't per institution - it's per banking group, so if you have �50000 in each of two or more banks belonging to the same group, you are not fully protected. All your accounts will count as only one. To be fully protected, you need to spread your money among banks that belong to different banking groups.

See here under the heading 'More than one account'.

http://www.moneywise.co.uk/news-views/2008/10/ 14/spread-your-cash-around

[Skyline D]

It's actually per banking licence if you want to really nitpick, not per banking group.

Some banking groups hold only one licence to cover all members of the group. Some have individual licences for each of them.

You could have �50k fully protected in each bank of a banking group provided they hold separate licences.

All of which is completely irrelevant to someone who clearly holds a basically empty student account for routing rent payments through. The fact that he or she IS panicking about that underlines a lot that is wrong with the lack of basic understanding of banking in this country!

[naomi24]

Yes, that's right. It is per banking licence, but I didn't want to nitpick and felt my explanation simplified things somewhat. It is irrelevant to the person who asked the question, but it may not be irrelevant to others who are reading the thread, so it's worth pointing out.

[skunkster]

why dont you see if you can move into the house in park lane worth 30million with the rest of the squatters and keep your rent to yourself.......lol