KSF victim in YouTube attack on IOM govt

UK Government is true culprit

I sympathise completely with the plight of depositors. However, they are pointing the finger in the wrong direction. The reason KSFIOM failed was because the UK Government seized some £400mn+ of depositors money in KSFIOM that had been placed on deposit with UK banks. The UK's justification for this was to protect UK depositors of Kaupthang Bank in Iceland including UK Councils. Of course it also provided Gordon Brown with a convenient scape goat to divert attention away from his own mess. However, KSFIOM was a completely independent business. The deposits it held were not accessible by Kaupthing in Iceland and had not been used to fund Kaupthing in Iceland. KSFIOM had no exposure to sub-prime mortgages and indeed its primary exposure was to UK banking institutions. The majority of this money remains frozen by the UK Government and this is the reason funds cannot be released to KSFIOM depositors. The UK Governments action has no legal foundation and I believe is being vigorously challenged. In due course the money will not doubt be released, but of course the damage is done. So if your looking for someone to blame, you'll find them in No 10 and No 11 Downing Street. Perhaps you might want to ask Mr Brown to give the money back? One last thought - isn't it time depositors accepted some responsibility for their own actions. If you place money with a bank or in any investment you need to assess the risk and choose one that you are comfortable with. If you chase yield you can't really expect the tax payer to foot the bill if it goes wrong?

Posted by: David

Mrs

In reply to David - Being as you seem to be such an expert on the KSF IOM disaster - perhaps you can tell me why, when MP's in UK have said if the IOM government request the return of the money held by UK, they will return it, why do the IOM government refuse to make a formal request for the return of the money deposited by them in KSFUK ???

Posted by: S Griffiths

Derbyshire Offshore

As a time depositor with Derbyshire Offshore, I was not allowed to withdraw my funds when the Derbyshire was taken over by Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander (Isle of Man), even with a penalty. I requested my funds be returned but was told this was not possible. Therefore, not all depositors are to blaim for investing in Kaupthing. Steve.

Posted by: Steve

Sympathy

KSFIOM depositors do not want sympathy. They want what every other Kaupthing depositor - i.e. UK, Dutch, Luxembourg, Scandinavian, German etc got i.e. their money back. Personally I agree that UK are a culrpit. What I don't understand is why the Isle of Man is doing nothing about it. Actually that's not true I do understand. They are **** scared of what would happen if they talked back to the UK. Well if they continue their present tactic it is likely to be case of hell mend them. The 50k depositors seem to be getting their act together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K62sDlGU_U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yePzEGkZTmk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1CvBrYACYQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRCxgPxnMAQ

Posted by: Margaretta

A chain of errors.

The rather glib comments of David and the following reposts typify all the commentaries over this incident. We need to use a different metric to analyse the avoidable disaster that happened for depositors. And that is what actions were not taken by those charged with protecting the depositors and to meet their own ascribed responsibilities? It was obvious, and acknowledged, that there was a serious risk with 'upstreamed' funds from KSFIoM if they were placed within reach of KSFhf, and thus KSFUK. It was the action of the directors of the bank, in consultation with the regulatory authorities of the IoM that place the depositors funds such that they were at fatal risk. I rest my case. The fact that the IoM is attempting to abrogate it's responsibility by pointing to the duplicity of the UK FSA is not sufficient to absolve them of the culpability of an irresponsible decision. All that needed to be done was protect the IoM funds by upstreaming to an independent institution. It's that simple. The situation was going critical, obviously to all. This wasn't done. Why?

Posted by: drm

Pain all round

I didn’t mean to be flippant in my previous comments the situation is a disaster for all involved. The depositors are suffering badly but the biggest price (perhaps rightly) will ultimately be paid by the Isle of Man, both in terms of its reputation and in monetary cost. The IOM has put 193mn in to fund the deficit – that amounts to £2,600 for every man woman and child in the IOM. For the IOM Government not to be doing everything in its power to get the UK to repay the frozen monies is frankly absurd. MP’s, of course, can say just about anything that suits them because the Isle of Man cannot respond – there is simply no media coverage. Given time the truth will become clear but by then we will have a different Government and no one will really be interested. I’m afraid I still do not understand why people think that every deposit in every bank in the world should (or even could) be 100% guaranteed? This way madness lies. If your deposit is protected regardless of the banks underlying risk, then depositors will simply give their money to the bank that pays the most. Banks will compete fiercely to be the one who pays the most, and take on more and more risk in order to keep up. Inevitably that leads to a bank failure; however, because all banks have been chasing the same risks it leads to systematic collapse. Sound familiar?

Posted by: David

Culpability

The governments involved - the UK the Isle of Man and Iceland are all cuplable. However, the Isle of Man has said it can manage the matter without help (from the UK) and yet around 30% of creditors have years of misery ahead waiting to see what will come out of liquidation. A great many of these creditors were unable to open bank accounts in the UK as they were not resident and were forced into depositing their money offshore. I was one of many who placed the proceeds of a UK property sale offshore, not to make a greater financial gain but because there was no-where elso to go until I had an opportunity to buy again. That opportunity has now gone for ever. In my view the Isle of Man authorities are not capable of dealing with a disaster on the scale of the KSFIOM which they helped to create and have not had the decency to own up to. Their inquiry into the demise of the bank will not be an independent or transparent inquiry and therefore is unlikely to be worth the paper it is written on.

Posted by: depositor Spain

KSF IoM -Derbyshire Building Society

Who expects to put money in a Bank or Building Society and get less back? Especially when they tell you it is 100% Guaranteed no upper limit. And that the IoM Gov is looking has a financial services dept that is looking after it. Our money was taken by the Derbyhsire Building Society IoM and they sold us out without telling us and gave our money to the KSF bank, we were not allowed access to it until it matured one year later, by which time the KSF bank had gone bust. We did not choose to bank with the KSF it was forced upon us. We have lost our lifes savings, and now our home because of this banking fiasco. We are too old to go back out to work. The IoM is not a tax haven, tax is stopped at source and paid to the UK. It is the British Isles so why are our savings not guaranteed like other savers? Why did the IoM Gov not have a proper guarantee in place to cover us, like they said they had?

Posted by: Skint Now