My guess at the moment would be the Credit Union, AIB and Rabobank.

Northern Rock would be a pretty safe bet at this stage. Also the Post Bank.

Are Postbank owned by Fortis? I was under the impression that they were in trouble.

They were 50% owned by Fortis and 50% by An Post but that has since changed and they are now 50% owned by BNP Paribas, which is a much safer bet. They are a separate entity though and they do not lend nor have they been around long enough to have any exposure to most things. It would be a very safe place for your cash right now. If anyone has cash and is looking to tie it up now is the absolute time to do it - interest rates are crashing down and the banks are all about to drop the rates they offer in line with this. I managed to get a decent rate for €10 k a couple of months ago but that rate is no longer available - I know someone working in one of the banks as well and he says they are about to drop the rates they offer.

all irish institutions under the guarantee are relatively safe. or at least as safe as other european banks, which are much safer than US banks.

unless you have more than E100k, in which case you should split your deposits between institutions.

of course there's always the mattress or a hole in the ground!

maybe you could overpay the revenue by the amount you wish to save. i'd imagine that they'd be fairly safe hands with your money!

The guarantee could easily turn out to be a bit of a nonsense though. Do the terms of it say cash up front? Not that I have seen. Whilst all deposits are guaranteed by the Government, look at the Government's finances. It could take years for you to recover your cash. I have all my money in 3 institutions - An Post, AIB Bank and the UK Post Office. But then again I possess nowhere near 100,000 or anything like it - I'm a student for goodness sake .

Turn your lolly into foods with a long shelf-life, a store of petrol or diesel and other home-heating fuels, some machines and skills - a generator, a fishing rod, warm clothes if you're lacking them, some seeds, food-growing equipment and knowledge.

It could all go down big time baby.

I'm not watching too many besieged American food-accumulating youtubers with machine guns, or nothin'

Better storing diesel, petrol does not have a particularly long shelf life in terms of storage.

A topic of great interest. Nobody here is purporting to give any professional advice, and anyone acting on any suggestion made here needs to be aware of that - at your own risk.

The exception is Audi whose advice is lifestyle, rather than financial.

Auditor - the chickens laid three eggs today for the first time. It looks as if they will provide ample interest on the small investment made.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Turn your lolly into foods with a long shelf-life, a store of petrol or diesel and other home-heating fuels, some machines and skills - a generator, a fishing rod, warm clothes if you're lacking them, some seeds, food-growing equipment and knowledge.

It could all go down big time baby.

I'm not watching too many besieged American food-accumulating youtubers with machine guns, or nothin'

Are any of them making sense?

I've got my money split between AIB and Bank of Ireland and they've both been fine. Of the two, AIB would be safer and hasn't had the worst of the mauling visited upon the Irish banking community.

AIB is much safer than B of I, ironic though it is given AIB's cowboy tendency and exposure to insane property speculation (they have saleable assets that takes the edge off the sting). British Nationwide is supposed to be moving here. Safest of the lot, almost untouched by the recent motorised air-circulation device/excretal matter interface scenario. Ethical and sensible, and like nearly all the mutual societies in Britain it is now doing way better than the banks and the demutualised institutions.

toxic avenger wrote:

AIB is much safer than B of I, ironic though it is given AIB's cowboy tendency and exposure to insane property speculation (they have saleable assets that takes the edge off the sting). British Nationwide is supposed to be moving here. Safest of the lot, almost untouched by the recent motorised air-circulation device/excretal matter interface scenario. Ethical and sensible, and like nearly all the mutual societies in Britain it is now doing way better than the banks and the demutualised institutions.

I have a sneaking regard for AIB, they are indeed cowboys and have a far freer attitude than the stuffy types in Bank of Ireland. That said, that organisational culture in BOI must be as a result of those years where it had to act as the government's bank and, to an extent, simply evolved into an outgrowth of the civil service. Demutualised societies have done notably poorly, viz Northern Rock's collapse and subsequent nationalisation.

just out of interest, if you have a large mortgage and much smaller savings with the same institution, are they likely to take the savings off the debt total if the bank goes bust??

Frankly, worldwide, I'm not sure there are any safe banks. We none of us know what is on whose balance sheets.... I figure we pay the Department of Finance to worry about it....I give up

expat girl wrote:

just out of interest, if you have a large mortgage and much smaller savings with the same institution, are they likely to take the savings off the debt total if the bank goes bust??

Doubtful that they could, they are entirely separate contracts. The fact that they are with the same institution is not relevant.