-->Bis vorhin konnte man nicht auf die Seite vom Northern Rock Online Banking zugreifen. Schon seit Freitag nicht, auch nicht Sonntag morgens um 3.00 Uhr.

Aber seit ein paar Minuten kommt ein großes Statement"We're open!" und der Zugriff geht wieder.

Angeblich hatte die BoE eine weitere Krisensitzung.

Und jetzt kommt diese Meldung:

Viele Grüße, DT



All British banks now may expect government rescue:
Stopping a Crisis from Becoming a Catastrophe

By Philip Stephens
Financial Times, London
Monday, September 17, 2007, 5:08 p.m. ET

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2e4257da-656a-11dc-bf89-0000779fd2ac.html

In the end fine economic judgments were swept aside by politics, calm deliberation by panic on the streets. Never mind that investors in Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, had been assured their money was safe.

The television images of thousands queuing to empty their bank accounts the length and breadth of Britain were too much for Gordon Brown's government. Signs that the contagion was spreading to other leading banks risked a crisis turning into a catastrophe. Only a blanket guarantee would do.

Such was the judgment that led to the extraordinary announcement last night that the Treasury is ready, in effect, to stand behind depositors not just in Northern Rock but in every other British bank. Government ministers -- notably Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the exchequer -- presented the guarantee as a prudent safeguard against the risk of systemic breakdown.

In truth, the panic that had brought down Northern Rock was fast spreading through the corridors of power in Whitehall.

Gordon Brown's government has built its reputation on economic competence. Stability was Labour's trump card in the three general elections fought and won by Tony Blair. As chancellor through that decade Mr Brown could claim much of the credit. This week's scenes of anxious voters emptying their bank accounts, redolent of Latin America 20-odd years ago, threatened to sweep it all away.

That, after all, is what happened to the Conservatives on September 16, 1992, when a wave of financial speculation saw sterling ejected from the European exchange-rate mechanism. The Treasury wasted billions in the pound's defence. The then-Tory government never recovered its reputation for sound economic management.

Now Mr Brown's administration is haunted by the memory. It can hardly have escaped the present government's notice that the latest turmoil has coincided almost to the day with the 15th anniversary of what became known as Black Wednesday.

The impact, to be fair, has been much more limited. There have been no emergency rises in interest rates this time. The prime minister has escaped public humiliation. Most voters have been as yet untouched. But the damage to the government's reputation may be considerable -- the reason perhaps why Mr Brown, less than three months in 10 Downing St., has seemed reluctant these past few days to step out of the shadows.

How is it, voters might reasonably ask of the politicians, that an upheaval that began with some dodgy loans in the American mortgage market could bring one British bank to its knees and threaten the future of several others? Why, if London claims to be the world's pre-eminent financial centre, did the regulatory system not work? Most people will not be much interested in complex explanations about the implications of the integration of global financial markets or about the balance of regulatory responsibilities in Britain between the government, the Bank of England, and the Financial Services Authority. The buck has to stop somewhere; that may well be Downing Street.

The speed with which a squall became a hurricane leaves some of the big questions unanswered, even among the experts. Britain's regulatory system, with responsibility split between the Bank of England and the FSA, and the government one step removed, looked fine on paper. Many saw it as a model for others. But during recent days, the big question has been: Where does responsibility lie? With the FSA, the Bank of England, or the government? Sometimes it has seemed the real answer has been nowhere.

Mervyn King, the BoE governor, has played by the book. His refusal to bail out the banks when the credit squeeze began to bite set him apart from central bankers in the US and continental Europe. But it also carried the right message: Commercial banks should not expect to be rescued by taxpayers from bad decisions. Likewise, shareholders in Northern Rock should have expected to pay the price for a business model that relied on limitless liquidity. But, as Mr King has discovered, being right can also sometimes carry costs.

Mr Brown must hope that by writing a blank cheque to worried depositors the government will restore trust in the financial system. It also seems likely that ministers will move swiftly to improve the protections afforded to bank depositors, borrowing, with perhaps a blush, from the American model. But even if calm is restored, the second-round impact of the crisis is yet to be felt. Voters may soon find themselves paying more for their mortgages just as house prices begin to fall. Consumer confidence may slide further. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, though supportive of the emergency measures, will make political hay.

All of a sudden the political mood that a week or so ago was said to be tempting Mr Brown to call an early general election is altogether darker. Only the other day I heard one senior minister predict that if the prime minister went early he would romp to victory. Now nothing seems quite so solid. Politics, as they say, has got interesting again.

Phillip Stephens is a columnist for the Financial Times.

-->Die Schritte von Schatzkanzler Alistair Darling sind extrem. Stellt Euch mal vor, Steinbrück würde verkünden, Ihr solltet nicht zur Sparkasse laufen und Euer Geld holen, weil er und unser Freund Axel Weber dafür garantieren würden. Würdet Ihr ihm glauben, wenn Ihr solche Schlangen vor der Volksbank oder der DeuBa sehen würdet wie in England? Da ist deren Wort doch genauso viel wert wie das eines Gebrauchtwagenhändlers. Jochen Sanio hat die Wahrheit gesprochen, schon vor ein paar Wochen, und auch jetzt wieder.

Nach Northern Rock ist in England jetzt Alliance&Leicester dran, weiterhin Bradford&Bingley. Man wundert sich auch, wenn man bei den deutschen Zinsen für Tagesgelder schaut, wieso Norisbank, BMW Bank, VW Bank und ein paar andere (DAB Bank) so außergewöhnlich hohe Zinsen geben...

Gruß DT

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2973527.ece

Banking crisis: The fear spreads
By Sean Farrell, Financial Editor
Published: 18 September 2007

The Government made an unprecedented intervention in the Northern Rock crisis yesterday by publicly guaranteeing all the bank's deposits. The intervention, by the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, capped a dramatic day that had seen further mass queuing outside Northern Rock branches and billions wiped off banks' shares on fears of contagion.

The worst hit of the other banks was Alliance & Leicester, which tried to stem fears that it would be the next bank to seek emergency funding. Bradford & Bingley was another to feel the pain.

The slump in Alliance & Leicester's shares raised fears of its customers making mass withdrawals of their savings in a second run on a British bank, and the Leicester-based mortgage lender had to act quickly.

But it was the Northern Rock crisis that continued to cause the most concern. The bank's shares fell by 35.4 per cent, and mass withdrawals continued, bringing the total withdrawn in the past week to £2bn.

In an attempt to calm the panic, Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said:"Should it be necessary, we, with the Bank of England, would put in place arrangements to guarantee all the existing deposits in Northern Rock during the current instability. This means people can continue to take their money out of Northern Rock but if they choose to leave their money in Northern Rock it will be guaranteed safe and secure."

Mr Darling said that if forced to, the Government would use Northern Rock's assets to fund the deposits. City analysts said that would be tantamount to nationalising the bank.

The Treasury said the Government could provide backing for other lenders if necessary, depending on their financial situation.

Before Mr Darling's statement, thousands of people had continued to queue outside Northern Rock branches and bombard the bank's website to get their money out, causing fears the Newcastle-based bank would be unable to continue trading. About £2bn of the bank's £24bn of deposits was taken out before yesterday with another £1bn likely to have been taken out yesterday.

Geoffrey Wood, economics professor at Cass Business School, said:"What Mr Darling is doing is a good idea. If there is any criticism it would be that he should have done this earlier."

Professor Wood said Mr Darling's action was without precedent because the last time there was a financial crisis of this scale was in 1866.

Mr Darling has been trying since Friday to reassure savers that Northern Rock was solvent and had the backing of the Bank of England. But with no sign of a let-up in withdrawals from Northern Rock he was forced to offer the full guarantee.

Alliance & Leicester was forced to make a statement yesterday after its shares plunged by nearly a third and Bradford & Bingley shares also fell heavily. With relatively few depositors, both banks use the money markets to fund their lending, sparking fears they could face similar problems to Northern Rock.

Alliance & Leicester said it knew of no reason for its shares to fall and that if its business was badly affected it would make an announcement to the Stock Exchange. The share plunge slashed Alliance & Leicester's market value by £1.2bn. Mr Darling said no other bank had gone to the Bank of England for emergency funding.

The Government and the Bank of England have been under increasing pressure over the crisis at Northern Rock. Bankers and economists have criticised the Bank of England's hardline stance on not providing support for financial institutions, and opposition MPs have tried to pin the blame on the Prime Minister for his stewardship of the economy as Chancellor.

-->VW 3,5% ab 50.000 und alle anderen liegen selten darüber. Wenn doch, dann steht da meistens max. 20.000 für 6 Monate, nur Neukunden,... somit 50 Euro Begrüßungsgeld.

Mehr als 3 bis 3,5 % fürs Tagesgeld gibt es nicht und Druck machen wohl auch die exoten Banken mit Traumzinsen und albtraumhafter Einlagensicherung - oft erwähnt von unseren Scheiss-GEZ-Wirtschaftsmedien.

Meine"Rentenkasse" liegt zur Zeit in einer Bundesanleihe mit kurzer Restlaufzeit 4 %, bekomme ich ggf. sofort einen Wertpapierkredit drauf .