Is This Right ?

[BertiWooster]

So , you put your sobs , in a foreign bank , outside of the protection of the British Financial regulatory system .

The bank rolls over on it's back .

You come running to the Government ( the rest of us ) to bail you out .

Why should we ?

[R1Geezer]

Sovs - Short for Soveriegns - if ya gonna be a Geeza get it right!

Sadly the banks concerned was registered in Uk, same as Abbey National for example which is Spanish.

[Gromit]

Alistair Darling pledge was:

"We are pursuing Iceland and we will pursue it vigorously to make sure that we get the money due to us back.

"But, in the meantime, I am going to be able to help those savers who would otherwise have to look to Iceland to get their money back. I am prepared to stand behind them and to stand behind the depositors."

Which seems like a sensible approach. The Government will lean on the Icelandic Government to get the money back, but in the meantime, help anyone who this affects.

[BertiWooster]

No , not 'sovs'

'sobs' - my reference was to the slang used for pounds , in the comedy drama series - Minder

[Ethel]

Is it? I was sure they say 'sovs' in Minder - I'll pay better attention.

[BertiWooster]

Yes , but these savers are going to get ALL their money back - not limited to the 50k for people guranteed under the British regulatory system ; - when they knew , in this case that , the Icelandic government , was supposed to gurantee a percentage of the amount of money in their accounts .
So isn't that the risk they took ?

As for the Government getting the money back - Well , lets hope so - but I wouldn't bet too many ' sobs' on it .

[Davethedog]

Never call pounds "sobs" in Minder?

Its as R1 calls it you mis-heard Berti

[jake-the-peg]

Maybe they'll pay in kind.

that's an awful lot of Cod

[LeMarchand]

I'm sure that your Aunt Agatha would be appalled that a Wooster would watch something as dreadfully common as 'Minder'. Whilst I did not watch the series, "sov" was correctly explained by R1Geezer and I respectfully suggest that you misheard the awful dialect that those people use.

[S.K.SWEDEN]

I wish the Swiss banking system would collapse, all those secret accounts wiped out overnight, some good may come of this crisis yet!

[R1Geezer]

definateley Sovs me old china! I should know I'm the Geezer round here!

[Oneeyedvic]

So are you including Abbey (Spanish)

the Honk Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC to most people)

What about ING? (from Holland)

[Gromit]

An answer on another forum:

Icesave was a UK "branch" of Landsbanki; meanwhile Heritable was a UK "subsidiary" of the same Landsbanki.

Makes a difference, apparently, as Heritable were fully covered by UK regs while Icesave's deposit protection arrangements were partly external.

Reykjavik seems to have mis-spoken itself last night (translation issues), upsetting Darling by saying they weren't paying up. They've now put out a fairly grovelly statement saying they will pay their share, and may even find enough to cover all of Icesave deposits.

[BertiWooster]

LeMarchand

I'm not scared of aunt Agatha - us Wooster's are made of stern stuff , dont you know - eh what .