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Offshore depositors up in arms

Created:

23 October 2008

Written by:

Jonathan Eley

We've received a huge number of emails from individuals who'd deposited money in the offshore branches of Icelandic banks, specifically Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Isle of Man. Below are a selection. A pressure group has been formed, more details at www.ksfiomdepositors.netgenius.co.uk.

"It has come to light that assets in Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander UK, seized by the FSA on orders from the Government, belong to British savers and NOT to the Icelandic Government as has been reported.

£550m of British savers' assets have been tied up in the administration of Kaupthing UK with evidence indicating that the Treasury intends to use these funds to cover Icelandic debts and NOT return them to savers.

"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 IoM, others still had their money in UK Building societies that then transferred their funds to the IoM.

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

We realise that in the light of the ever deepening global finantial crisis, this bank's problems may seem small in comparison. But we have been marginalised with no due cause. Below that surface, our government at the highest levels is implicated in potential illegality and political manoevering that has implications not just for the depositors in KSF IoM , but for the whole of the off-shore banking structure." - Margaret Baker

"We are UK nationals who have had the privilege of living in Dubai for the last 6 years. As we do not have a current UK address, we have not been able to open new UK accounts and we, like many Brits living in Dubai, deposit our savings in offshore banks, in our case in the Isle of Man. The bank we used was the Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander Bank (Isle of Man).

We now find ourselves in a parlous position - the actions of British Government in freezing the assets of Kaupthing UK led the Icelandic Government, which had just nationalised the parent bank Kaupthing hf, to withdraw its support from the Isle of Man entity. At the time, this was fully solvent but, due to this situation, is now in provisional liquidation.

The 3,000 Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander savers in the UK whose accounts have not been transferred to ING Direct are currently being sent their compensation forms, while our fate continues to hang in the balance. We are concerned that the interests of non-resident British savers are not being taken into account despite Gordon Brown’s assurances." - Tom and Theri Bailey