Thread: Lloyds offshore account

Would this not include Lloyds offshore?

The UK government said it would inject up to £37bn of taxpayers cash into Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS

Link-http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7667342.stm

I'm going to sign up with Standard Bank (Isle of Man) on the advice of companies finacial advisor. Seems ok to me...

The IOM banks arn't covered for single penny. If you have a lump sum put it in an Irish bank for 2 years.

Funny, the advisor told me they were and I have read the same while researching. Channel Is. banks arn't covered.

Originally Posted by Bung

I'm going to sign up with Standard Bank (Isle of Man) on the advice of companies finacial advisor. Seems ok to me...

Bung, is this Standard Bank or Standard Chartered Bank? Standard Bank is actually a South African bank and is not the same as Standard Chartered Bank - although they were one, Standard Chartered had to sell down its South African operations in the 1980s - for political reasons (as did Barclays).

If it is the South African Standard Bank, then I doubt the deposits will guaranteed by the British government.

Standard (South African) bank.....

I'm still wondering why he recommended it, said it had good customer service ie if a problem with your card while in Thailand you could actually call and speak to a real person and it is easy to set up as I am on a boat and not have to worry about proof of address stuff. he does a lot of accounts for yachties, probably knows someone. He also mentioned Abbey and Nationwide.

Can you define "financial advisor" ? do you pay him or does he give you "free" advice ?

I've just came accross this discussion,
I don't have time for reading all the posts, I just wanted to let you know (whoever wants to open the Lloys Offshore account) that exactly today I've sent the letter asking to close the account. I'm absolutely dissatisfied with Lloyds TSB Offshore service.
Probably, I'm just not the right person for this account......
But, the decision to open this account I consider as totaly unfortunate....

Probably you will be amused by the following text (I'm not an experienced person in banking and stuff) but this is a part of the letter to the bank explaining my reasons for the requiest of closing the account:

" The reason for my request is simple. Lloyds International Account has not met/satisfied any of my needs. I opened the account to be able to spend in Spain, where I am currently working, the money earned in UK. This (the account) was supposed to be comfortable and money-saving way to do that. However, I was meet with an unreliable and slow customer service which tends to ignore its clients. The cost of withdrawing the money from Lloyds Offshore Currency account, in my case, is comparable with the cost of withdrawing the money from my Lloyds TSB account. Of course, you do not take any charge for the withdrawal but the charge taken by Spanish bank is 9 EURO for 600 EURO withdrawal, while the charge by Lloyds TSB for withdrawing the same amount of money is around 7.5 pounds (no charge from Spanish bank). Taking into consideration the fact that the entire transfer of money from my Lloyds TSB account to my Lloyds TSB Offshore currency account is approx 1 week, it’s not worth the effort at all. Let alone the fact that I have applied two times for the Phone Banking without any success, the transfers need to be made by phone. Without the Phone Banking service, making the transfers is more than troublesome. Additionally, one such phone transfer, in my case, was made wrongly and I had to repeatedly call Lloyds TSB Offshore and ask for the money to be returned, which took approx 5 days and was quite humiliating.

I was extremely satisfied with Lloyds TSB service and I would and I did strongly recommend opening account in this bank. However, I will definitely absolutely discourage any person to use Lloyds TSB Offshore service. "


Best regards from Barcelona
ML

Got my Standard Bank accounts running and so far have had very good customer service. I have always got straight through to someone and have phone and internet banking up and running in one day.

^I've had Standard accounts in SA for about 10 years and I've never had a problem with them. Standard Chartered are also very good.

Most of the banks in the IOM are covered by the same protection as accounts in the UK, i.e. £50,000 single account holder £100,000 joint accounts.

Choosing the right bank, and account within that, depends on exactly what you are using it for. For example, most retail banks hide their true costs in currency exchange rates and other services.

I think that info may be wrong.

AFAIK the IOM has their own guarantee scheme. The amount protected may be the same although I vaguely remember it's less.

Worse .. the scheme works such that all IOM banks pay into it and it will only pay out funds held so if a bank collapses you can expect your money to be paid over the coming 10 (20?) years ... with (without?) interest? Usually the IOM offshore accounts have some link to the details of the scheme. Anyway it's not the same as UK protection where the government will pay you what you had in the account up to 50k.

Re Singapore I received a letter a while back from HSBC stating that all deposits were guaranteed by the Singapore government to the full amount of the deposit.

Originally Posted by Bung

Well done Tud, I couldn't find it. Something to bear in mind. It is usually something you would never have to worry about (haven't had to in my lifetime)

Until now...

gawd, it is so difficult being rich

Originally Posted by Bung

Funny, the advisor told me they were and I have read the same while researching. Channel Is. banks arn't covered.

Tread with caution.

I had money in the Channel Isles and when things went bottom up the FSC said I wasn't covered for compensation because the account was offshore.
When I tried to claim from the offshore compensation scheme I was told that the business was not registered there and was only an offshore office of the UK company and therefore not covered.
The bastards wriggled and wriggled.

^ not surprised by this, Thetyim, never trust the English Islanders with anything of value

It may take a while to get funds from the compensation scheme, but here are some of the details from the IOM website. I hope it is useful:

The Isle of Man has a depositors’ compensation scheme (DCS). The DCS partially compensates you if a bank in which you have deposited money fails. To pay compensation, a DCS fund is created (when needed) from contributions made by other banks in the Isle of Man. A summary of the cover provided by the DCS is as follows:

• The DCS compensates people who have money in current and deposit accounts in the Isle of Man with up to £50,000 of net deposits* per individual depositor or £20,000 for most other categories of depositor. Cover is calculated per depositor, per deposit taker, if this bank fails.
  This means that a maximum of £50,000 compensation is payable per individual and a maximum of £20,000 for companies, trusts etc.
• The Isle of Man’s DCS covers depositors irrespective of which country they live in or are incorporated in.
• Compensation is paid out of levies collected from other deposit takers in the Isle of Man, from sums that are loaned to the DCS by the Isle of Man Government and from any other sums that may be borrowed by the Scheme Manager for this purpose. The legislation does not specify when compensation will be paid, but the Scheme Manager will pay pay the full entitlement or part of the entitlement as soon as possible. The timing of payments may depend upon the size of the bank which fails. The payment period will also vary according to when liquidation proceeds are collected from the failed bank and how much is recovered. There is no "standing fund" of compensation (i.e. money is not collected before a bank failure).
• All licensed banks in the Isle of Man are members of the DCS, except those few which are listed in the Schedule at the end of the Regulations. Building societies in the Isle of Man are not participants in the DCS. The specific banks listed in the Schedule do not take deposits on the Island from the general public.
• Deposit compensation schemes in the UK, Ireland or elsewhere do not cover deposits with banks or building societies in the Isle of Man.

I hope this is of assistance!