From Christopher Davey.
BACK last May my wife and I responded to one of Landsbanki’s many ads in the JEP, and deposited therewith a quarter of our life savings/pension.The subsequent sorry tale is now history.

A shudder therefore went through my frame when I noted that Clydesdale was up for more of the same, using the strapline: ‘For guaranteed returns in a trusted location like Guernsey.’ Were that only the case!
In an attempt to kept us depositors quiet, the Guernsey authorities directed the administrators to pay us an initial 30p in the pound. What they have failed to reckon with is the dynamic efforts by the Landsbanki Action Group, both in Guernsey and over here, to make absolutely certain that every single depositor gets back 100 per cent of their money. After all, we were not taking a punt on the Stock Exchange, we were simply depositing money into a bank – albeit, as it now appears, a foreign bank that had, in 2006, taken over the long-established Guernsey Cheshire Bank.

Those Landsbanki depositors, who have registered and subscribed to the action group, are now growing in confidence that they, at least, can look forward to repayment in full. Those yet to join should contact support@jerseylandsbankiaction.org.je.

Back in 2003 the Edwards Report, which Jersey accepted in its entirety, called both for a depositors’ protection scheme and an ombudsman in both jurisdictions. Guernsey, it appears, may have, very recently, introduced such a scheme – albeit not retrospective, the authorities no doubt keeping their fingers crossed that lightning could not possibly strike twice.

Jersey, we were led to believe, would have a DPS in place before the end of 2008 – such having been approved by the States – but the authorities, past masters of delay, have now quietly passed the whole unsavoury affair over to Oxera ‘for review’, which will afford a further year’s dismal dithering. Our masters’ capacity for laying down treacle and for studiously blind-siding ‘elephants-in-the-room’ has a well-trodden history.

Both jurisdictions invest massive resources in dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s for their International Monetary Fund inspections. Yet, all the while, they continue to pray that they will wake up one morning to find that these two crucial issues – DPS and ombudsman – have been miraculously spirited away.
They never will. They remain the two vital elements in an equation that renders the long-term credibility of the entire Channel Islands’ finance industry so fragile.
La Robinette,
Rue du Crocquet,
St Brelade.