4 ms·

Not only that, but it's also a method of protecting your assets. You're protected for €100k per entity per bank.

hackeraccount 5y ago
yeah but realistically will any person ever lose assets in a bank? I know in the 2008 crisis they made (or maybe it was just they said they would make) any personal accounts good; if it was over the limit (I think that's FICA) or not.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  Yes, it actually happened in The Netherlands a bit over a decade ago, after the financial crisis. If you had more than 100k in savings in there (and they were known for their attractive savings rate), you would be in trouble. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Bank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Bank
- ascar 5y ago
  Does (or did) the US have laws that protect a certain amount of savings? I would assume since the 100k are guaranteed by law that the state does not further step in on losses above that. When there is no law like that in place the situation is entirely different.
  - blitzar 5y ago
    https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/faq.html https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/faq.html FDIC deposit insurance, 250k per FDIC-insured bank, per ownership category.
    - dcolkitt 5y ago
      Also add this is per person including beneficiaries. So a family of four has $1mn in FDIC coverage.
- blitzar 5y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-banks-idUSKBN1K3242 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-banks-idUSKBN1K324... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute Are the two that come to mind. Cyprus deposits in a couple of banks in 2013 above 100k were lost I believe. Icesave played out badly in the UK in 08, quite a few councils etc took some nasty lossses. Either way, waiting for multiple years, winding up and down of court cases, bankrupcy proceedings etc to find out if the rest of your money is gone or not is not much fun. The kind of person parking a couple of 100k in cash accounts is almost by definition risk averse.
- throw3849 5y ago
  My friend lost 1M in Cypriot bank. There are many stories about frozen assets. If you have decent money, using single account/country is not just lazy, but stupid.
  - GDC7 5y ago
    If you have decent money you go with the best, no need to spread: Below the list of the world's top 50 safest banks https://d2tyltutevw8th.cloudfront.net/media/document/press-release-worlds-safest-banks-2020-1602792478.pdf https://d2tyltutevw8th.cloudfront.net/media/document/press-r...
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I haven't found any of these stories. Care to share a news article?
    - rutthenut 5y ago
      Search for "Laiki bank account" and that gives plenty of info about Cyprus money re-appropriation, for example. Iceland bank issues were widely covered too
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        I couldn't find anything about re-appropriation. Just about the bank having problems, and the accounts being moved to a different bank.
rich_sasha 5y ago
Worth pointing out that sometimes multiple banks share a license (usually when new entities want a bank-like product and white-label an existing bank) and then you’re only covered for 100k per license. In extremis, you can have many bank accounts but only be covered up to 100k total, if they all map to the same license.
dtech 5y ago
This is only for natural persons, not for businesses.
- sjaak 5y ago
  Businesses are protected too: https://www.dnb.nl/betrouwbare-financiele-sector/nederlandse-depositogarantie/geldt-depositogarantie-ook-voor-mijn-bedrijf/ https://www.dnb.nl/betrouwbare-financiele-sector/nederlandse...
- hfjtn4ndkfk 5y ago
  Maybe in theory. In practice everything will be protected, without amount limit, otherwise trust would collapse. The germans made this official in the 2007 crisis by declaring that all bank accounts are guaranteed by state, with a 1 billion euro limit.
  - orangepurple 5y ago
    https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292 My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost. The most of circulating assets on our business Current Account are blocked. Over 700k of expropriated money will be used to repay country's debt. Probably we will get back about 20% of this amount in 6-7 years. I'm not Russian oligarch, but just European medium size IT business. Thousands of other companies around Cyprus have the same situation. The business is definitely ruined, all Cypriot workers to be fired. We are moving to small Caribbean country where authorities have more respect to people's assets. Also we are thinking about using Bitcoin to pay wages and for payments between our partners. Special thanks to: - Jeroen Dijsselbloem - Angela Merkel - Manuel Barroso - the rest of officials of "European Comission" P.S. The worst thing is, that even a month ago I was suspecting that things can go wrong. In February, I several times called my banker and lawyer and asked them if money on the account is safe, mentioning that article in Financial Times. But they convinced me that there is no reason to worry, and even if country goes default, in no way current accounts may be affected. "This is European Union and banks here can't just grab your money and go" I was told. I got a hard lesson and now I know the meaning of phrase "TRUST NO ONE". (...) The stealing of my money is now finalized. Yesterday I looked at my Laiki account and found that frozen amount is not more shown on my balance. 100% of frozen funds is now appears as outgoing transaction to nobody with comment "DECREE". Also there are some news from lawyers. Quote The Supreme Court has not announced its decision yet. It examines preliminary objections raised by the Attorney on a basis that the Law and the Order are political acts of the state (like decision to start war) and therefore cannot be examined or controlled by the Supreme Court and that the matter in issue should be considered as a private and not a public law matter. Also, there is recent translation of the "Capital Controls imposing DECREE" [ 2013-07-10 10:49:23 PM Update ] "Blocked Funds" amount has finally disappeared from our Laiki account. Bank told me it's "waived" (their interpretation of word "stolen"). We won't receive any bank shares as compensation for confiscated amount since the bank is liquidated. The rest of the money (100k EUR) are still subject to Capital Control and we can only transfer 5K monthly. Today I had a conversation with a manager from Laiki Bank. He has been honest and confirmed that we may forget about anything over 100K as it's already spent to pay country's debts. Also, I was warned that the financial situation in the country is getting worse and worse and we should be ready to lose even part of insured (under 100K) money during this year (this is why they keep capital control enforced). By the way, this style of "bank restructuring" is going to be adopted in the whole European Union. Soon, everyone's uninsured money (over 100K EUR) in EU banks will be at risk of seizure.
ewg4345h43 5y ago
Many people though like you they are protected in the EU... Until Cyprus declared in 2013 they will confiscate money even from accounts with less than 100.000 EURO due to their financial crisis in 2013. Later, they reverted that decision, because the EU was scarred by the consequences and decided to help Cyprus overcome the crisis.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  There is no EU-wide deposit insurance. It was widely called for but blocked. European deposit insurance is nationally administered.
  - ewg4345h43 5y ago
    There is a EU directive that require certain guarantees from the member states. Citation from wikipedia: Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit-guarantee schemes[11] requires all member states to have a deposit guarantee scheme for at least 90% of the deposited amount, up to at least 20,000 euros per person. On October 7, 2008, the Ecofin meeting of EU's ministers of finance agreed to increase the minimum amount to 50,000. ...
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > EU directive that require certain guarantees from the member states Which is not EU-wide deposit insurance. It is a directive asking EU members to create national deposit insurance schemes.

yeah but realistically will any person ever lose assets in a bank? I know in the 2008 crisis they made (or maybe it was just they said they would make) any personal accounts good; if it was over the limit (I think that's FICA) or not.

stingraycharles 5y ago
Yes, it actually happened in The Netherlands a bit over a decade ago, after the financial crisis. If you had more than 100k in savings in there (and they were known for their attractive savings rate), you would be in trouble. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Bank https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSB_Bank
ascar 5y ago
Does (or did) the US have laws that protect a certain amount of savings? I would assume since the 100k are guaranteed by law that the state does not further step in on losses above that. When there is no law like that in place the situation is entirely different.
- blitzar 5y ago
  https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/faq.html https://www.fdic.gov/deposit/deposits/faq.html FDIC deposit insurance, 250k per FDIC-insured bank, per ownership category.
  - dcolkitt 5y ago
    Also add this is per person including beneficiaries. So a family of four has $1mn in FDIC coverage.
blitzar 5y ago
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-banks-idUSKBN1K3242 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyprus-banks-idUSKBN1K324... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute Are the two that come to mind. Cyprus deposits in a couple of banks in 2013 above 100k were lost I believe. Icesave played out badly in the UK in 08, quite a few councils etc took some nasty lossses. Either way, waiting for multiple years, winding up and down of court cases, bankrupcy proceedings etc to find out if the rest of your money is gone or not is not much fun. The kind of person parking a couple of 100k in cash accounts is almost by definition risk averse.
throw3849 5y ago
My friend lost 1M in Cypriot bank. There are many stories about frozen assets. If you have decent money, using single account/country is not just lazy, but stupid.
- GDC7 5y ago
  If you have decent money you go with the best, no need to spread: Below the list of the world's top 50 safest banks https://d2tyltutevw8th.cloudfront.net/media/document/press-release-worlds-safest-banks-2020-1602792478.pdf https://d2tyltutevw8th.cloudfront.net/media/document/press-r...
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I haven't found any of these stories. Care to share a news article?
  - rutthenut 5y ago
    Search for "Laiki bank account" and that gives plenty of info about Cyprus money re-appropriation, for example. Iceland bank issues were widely covered too
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      I couldn't find anything about re-appropriation. Just about the bank having problems, and the accounts being moved to a different bank.

rich_sasha 5y ago

Worth pointing out that sometimes multiple banks share a license (usually when new entities want a bank-like product and white-label an existing bank) and then you’re only covered for 100k per license. In extremis, you can have many bank accounts but only be covered up to 100k total, if they all map to the same license.

dtech 5y ago

This is only for natural persons, not for businesses.

sjaak 5y ago
Businesses are protected too: https://www.dnb.nl/betrouwbare-financiele-sector/nederlandse-depositogarantie/geldt-depositogarantie-ook-voor-mijn-bedrijf/ https://www.dnb.nl/betrouwbare-financiele-sector/nederlandse...
hfjtn4ndkfk 5y ago
Maybe in theory. In practice everything will be protected, without amount limit, otherwise trust would collapse. The germans made this official in the 2007 crisis by declaring that all bank accounts are guaranteed by state, with a 1 billion euro limit.
- orangepurple 5y ago
  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=160292 My bank account's got robbed by European Commission. Over 700k is lost. The most of circulating assets on our business Current Account are blocked. Over 700k of expropriated money will be used to repay country's debt. Probably we will get back about 20% of this amount in 6-7 years. I'm not Russian oligarch, but just European medium size IT business. Thousands of other companies around Cyprus have the same situation. The business is definitely ruined, all Cypriot workers to be fired. We are moving to small Caribbean country where authorities have more respect to people's assets. Also we are thinking about using Bitcoin to pay wages and for payments between our partners. Special thanks to: - Jeroen Dijsselbloem - Angela Merkel - Manuel Barroso - the rest of officials of "European Comission" P.S. The worst thing is, that even a month ago I was suspecting that things can go wrong. In February, I several times called my banker and lawyer and asked them if money on the account is safe, mentioning that article in Financial Times. But they convinced me that there is no reason to worry, and even if country goes default, in no way current accounts may be affected. "This is European Union and banks here can't just grab your money and go" I was told. I got a hard lesson and now I know the meaning of phrase "TRUST NO ONE". (...) The stealing of my money is now finalized. Yesterday I looked at my Laiki account and found that frozen amount is not more shown on my balance. 100% of frozen funds is now appears as outgoing transaction to nobody with comment "DECREE". Also there are some news from lawyers. Quote The Supreme Court has not announced its decision yet. It examines preliminary objections raised by the Attorney on a basis that the Law and the Order are political acts of the state (like decision to start war) and therefore cannot be examined or controlled by the Supreme Court and that the matter in issue should be considered as a private and not a public law matter. Also, there is recent translation of the "Capital Controls imposing DECREE" [ 2013-07-10 10:49:23 PM Update ] "Blocked Funds" amount has finally disappeared from our Laiki account. Bank told me it's "waived" (their interpretation of word "stolen"). We won't receive any bank shares as compensation for confiscated amount since the bank is liquidated. The rest of the money (100k EUR) are still subject to Capital Control and we can only transfer 5K monthly. Today I had a conversation with a manager from Laiki Bank. He has been honest and confirmed that we may forget about anything over 100K as it's already spent to pay country's debts. Also, I was warned that the financial situation in the country is getting worse and worse and we should be ready to lose even part of insured (under 100K) money during this year (this is why they keep capital control enforced). By the way, this style of "bank restructuring" is going to be adopted in the whole European Union. Soon, everyone's uninsured money (over 100K EUR) in EU banks will be at risk of seizure.

ewg4345h43 5y ago

Many people though like you they are protected in the EU... Until Cyprus declared in 2013 they will confiscate money even from accounts with less than 100.000 EURO due to their financial crisis in 2013. Later, they reverted that decision, because the EU was scarred by the consequences and decided to help Cyprus overcome the crisis.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
There is no EU-wide deposit insurance. It was widely called for but blocked. European deposit insurance is nationally administered.
- ewg4345h43 5y ago
  There is a EU directive that require certain guarantees from the member states. Citation from wikipedia: Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit-guarantee schemes[11] requires all member states to have a deposit guarantee scheme for at least 90% of the deposited amount, up to at least 20,000 euros per person. On October 7, 2008, the Ecofin meeting of EU's ministers of finance agreed to increase the minimum amount to 50,000. ...
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > EU directive that require certain guarantees from the member states Which is not EU-wide deposit insurance. It is a directive asking EU members to create national deposit insurance schemes.