Hi,

I came across this bank offering 6.5% savings rate. Has anyone got any comments/feedback about this bank? A Nordic bank may sound more convincing than FirstSave of Nigeria.

The website seems pretty amateurish to me, since it doesn't tell whether the interest are paid monthly or annually.

Cheers.

W

This is what it says on the website:

"Since we have no branches, we don’t have any of the costs of running them, so we can offer you a better rate on your savings."

Where do you go if you have a problem? The website says the address is One Hanover St, London W1S 1AX but strangely enough the "Contact Us" link shows:

Kaupthing Edge
PO Box 9403
Nottingham
NG9 9DR

Or maybe you have to call Revkavik?

Personally, I wouldn't bother.

It's in the FSCS schemetherefore your deposits up to £35k are fully protected.

Hi,

Interest is calculated daily on the savings account:

http://www.kaupthingedge.co.uk/Help/Faqs.aspx?id=03

How often will I receive interest?

For savings accounts, interest is paid monthly direct to your Kaupthing Edge savings account.

For Term Deposit deals, interest is paid on the date when the investment matures. It is transferred to your Kaupthing Edge savings account along with the maturing capital.

Kaupthing Bank operate in 13 countries. In the UK they run under the name Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander following the acquisition of the old merchant Bank Singer & Friedlander. Singer & Friedlander was formed in 1907.

B

Thanks for the info money-savings-fan. I did more research on this bank and found this article.

'Based on prices quoted in the credit markets, international investors reckon Kaupthing, Iceland's biggest bank, is about seven times more likely to default than the typical European bank'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml;jsessionid=BP5FJX510NW0BQFIQMGSFFOAVCBQWIV0?xml=/money/2008/02/03/cniceland103.xml

I think I will just pass on this one.

W

Thanks for your second post on this Wei, I read the Telegraph article on the troubles brewing up in Icelands Financials/Banks with crossholdings being a prime concern (remember split capital zero's about 6 or 7 years ago?).

I have just sold my house a few months ago and deposited the equity in one of the Iceland-based banks for the great interest rates but that is coming out today, worked too hard to get to early retirement and am heading out of UK in 8 weeks so it is time to find another home or homes for my cash.

I think this article should be promoted on more account comparison sites to save disappointment, not to cause a rush but just to make people aware if they have more than 35k in their account.

P

I have checked our FSCS scheme and it doesn't seem to be registered with them. They give a number 875947. If it means anything - it may be in a financial scheme in their country which is probably no good to anyone in UK.

It would help if money supermarket only dealt with firms in the scheme or mentioned if they were in it or not.

I also put in the First Save Nigeria - which also seemed unknown.

Would be glad to hear if I am wrong.

I was with BCCI Gibraltar when it went bust which was not covered by any financial scheme.

Kristina

Kaupthing Edge is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

Kaupthing Edge is a trading name of Kaupthing Bank hf and Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Ltd.The number 875949 refers to Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander Ltd's registration with Companies House in the UK.

http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/

Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander is authorised and regulated by the FSA (as you can see from their register, the Firm Reference Number is 140839) and they are also members of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Anyone depositing money gets the Compensation Scheme protection (100% of the first £35,000 deposited).

W

You may want to read the other articles on this forum about Kaupthing. Basically, the Sunday Times and Telegraph newspapers this week have been sounding alarm bells on this organisation since Moodys credit rating agency described the bank as "fragile" and have put the Bank on 'watch'.

Not one for widows and children I fear.

Thankyou everyone for the advise. Think I'll pass on Kaupthing.

Kristina

The thing is to get your facts straight before you make a decision. You should check the banks reports and the results they publish. I signed up for an account after checking these figures published on their website: http://www.kaupthing.com/Investors/Introduction-to-Investors. Straight from the horses mouth so to speak and it looks pretty good to me. Doesn't look as fragile as the papers make out.. but who believes everything the press say?

Chocolatepan,

the papers are just reporting the credit rating downgrades by agencies like Moodys, Fitch etc. All these Icelandic Financial instititions have large crossholdings of shares in each other and when one goes down or has a big share price drop the others all follow. Zero dividend preference shares in Investment Trusts were regarded as the safest class of Split Capital shares to own and the holders of these shares took a hammering about 6 years ago.

When credit rating agencies sound alarm bells even the biggest Financial Institutions can take a big hit on their share price. Try watching spread betting sites prices on Index and Bank shares when announcements are made concerning bad news on banks.

I used to invest 200k in another Icelandic bank until I learnt about the crossholdings in shares.

These banks offer at least 1% more interest than safer, bigger banks for a reason - they depend on savers deposits as they cannot borrow at the cheaper money market rates like more secure banks. If one of the fragile banks goes under it can take 6 months to get your money back and 6 months interest is lost. (In USA a bank I invested went under and I got a refund of my FDIC insured deposit within 2 weeks.

Just be careful for the extra few quid interest, don't bet on a 3 legged horse !

P

K

Came upon this Money Supermarket site today when researching KSF as a new home for my funds - interesting reading.

Be interested to hear who you end up with as my IOM Bank has lost its leading edge and its time to move

Sledge1.

---

Sledge1

I opened a KE savings account and they were very efficient in setting it up, only requiring a recent current a/c statement as proof of ID. Today when I try to login to confirm that my initial deposit is showing in my account all I get from the login tab is a message saying "This site is undergoing routine maintenance". No email to tell me the site is down, no message on the website about this. I smell a rat. Possibly some security hole in their website has been exposed, and the're trying to patch it up? Does anyone know what's happening at Kaupthing Edge today?

Hi mid-devonian,

We spoke to Kaupthing Edge for you earlier today, and they told us it was simply their website maintenance taking a little bit longer than they originally expected. They have posted the following on their website:

ROUTINE SITE MAINTENANCE ON KAUPTHING EDGE
"We are carrying out routine maintenance on our website today as part of our ongoing work to make the site as efficient as possible for our customers. Unfortunately, on this occasion, this work has taken longer than our technicians expected. We can confirm that this has no impact to account security, but it does mean that customers are unable to service their account at the moment. We expect service to resume very shortly, but in the meantime, would direct customers to our call centre on 08451 31 32 34 or to return to the site again shortly. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. "

Hope that helps.

---

Cheers,
Graeme Delap, Community Editor,
graeme.delap @ moneysupermarket.com (remove the spaces!)

Introduce yourself!