Ice Age

If you told me a year ago that this month’s headlines would include former Fourth Division rejects Hull City beating both Arsenal and Spurs and banks across the globe going bankrupt I would not have believed you. Hull City, incidentally, had a brush with receivership in 1982. How ironic that the mighty Tigers survived while the banks didn’t.

I had over £20,000 in Icesave until Moody’s downgraded their credit rating last year. As a result of this (and Northern Rock), I decided to “de-risk” my savings by moving a chunk of the money into Bradford & Bingley. What a decision to make! Within the space of a week I’ve watched B&B get quietly nationalised and Icesave plummet into the crevasse.

What’s particularly unnerving is that Iceland seems to have gone very quiet on the prospects for compensation. In theory, the first £16,317 of any deposits will be repaid by the Icelandic deposit guarantee scheme. The uncomfortable truth though, is that this scheme allegedly only has £88m in the kitty to cover deposits of £13bn.

Where that leaves me and the other 299,999 depositors in Icesave is debatable. Personally, in the current banking climate I’d rather pop down to William Hill and put all my money on Hull City winning the Premiership. This month, fact really is stranger than fiction.