Withdrawals at Santander UK Amid Spain Fears!

- Practically all major western banks are insolvent. Bank runs when they start will take on a life of its own. Witness the bank runs in Greece. It is spreading across Europe. Got physical gold yet?
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Withdrawals at Santander UK amid Spain fears!
by James Hall, and Philip Aldrick, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Customers with large deposits have started withdrawing cash from Santander, the bank has admitted, as it tried to reassure concerned members of the public that their money is safe.
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The high street bank also saw an increase in enquiries by worried savers to its call centres and in its 1,380 branches across Britain yesterday. Customers are worried that the bank will be dragged into the eurozone crisis because it is owned by Spain’s Banco Santander.
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On Thursday, Banco Santander, its UK subsidiary and 15 other Spanish banks had their credit ratings downgraded due to their exposure to the struggling Spanish economy. The Spanish banks were hit with more bad news yesterday, as official figures showed bad debts had risen to their highest level in 18 years.
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However, shares across the sector shrugged off the concerns to rally strongly, as treasury minister Inigo Fernandez de Mesa said there was little reason for concern as “Spanish banks have plenty of liquidity”. Lenders have about two years of funding, due to the European Central Bank’s emergency support.
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Spain is expected to announce shortly that the fund manager BlackRock and consultants Oliver Wyman will conduct an independent audit of the banks as part of month-long stress tests. Their remit will be to assess how much of the €600bn (£483bn) of mortgage debt needs to be written down.
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The government will make public the findings of the two-stage audit in an attempt to end speculation about concealed risk. Goldman Sachs has been drafted in separately to assess how much capital Bankia needs, with analysts suggesting the taxpayer could be on the hook for between €12bn and €15bn of new equity.
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