YOUR LETTERS

RE: BANKING COLLAPSE
YOU may well be aware that the various banking collapses around the world have been affecting the finances of the British ex-pat community here.
Probably the worst is the failure of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander in the Isle of Man. Kaupthing (IoM) took over the Derbyshire around a year ago and so many British savers, a large proportion of whom had their life savings, their pension provisions, in this building society, came under the Icelandic umbrella. Following the forced winding up of Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander (UK), the British government froze the assets of the bank in order to guarantee the deposits of British savers. Unfortunately for ex-pat savers, who are not allowed to have accounts in Britain, 600 million pounds of KSF (IoM) assets were included in this, meaning that KSF (IoM) became insolvent.

The Icelandic government does not appear economically able to meet the mother-bank guarantee given by Kaupthing (Iceland) and the deposits are not covered by Gordon Brown's pledge that no British depositor will lose out over this collapse.

Therefore many of the KSF (IoM) depositors are faced by financial ruin and I suspect that there are more than a few on this island. These people may like to know that there is a depositors' action group in existence, with a website, which has forums on the kind of action that can be taken and is being taken to try and resolve this situation. The address is ksfiomdepositors.netgenius.co.uk

Regards

Mike Davies