Well, as you know, currently there’s a financial meltdown going on. As you might know, I lack some luck at the financial sphere. In April this year, I’ve lost about 850 euros (at that time about 1350 dollars) as I bought a new television with paying in advance. However, the company I ‘invested’ in, went bankrupt, so I lost my money.

If a company goes bankrupt, the consumer is always left holding the baby. Either you’re money is gone or you are left unsure for quite a while. In this case, I’ve lost all my money and there’s no real chance to get it back.

To get to the point of this post: the last 2 weeks, the Fortis bank, was in a very painful situation. The government of The Netherlands acquired the bank and Fortis is quite safe now as the government can’t go bankrupt (we assume for now).

In The Netherlands, the Icelandic bank Icesave, division of Landsbanki, which is also active in Great Britain, launched this year with a spectacular interest of 5,25%. However, since it’s an Icelandic bank, there was some concern about the deposit guarantee fund. In short, the national bank of Iceland should guarantee the first 20.000 euros and the next 80.000 euros will be covered by the Dutch national bank.

Awaiting of my parents’ opinion of Icesave, I already registered at Icesave and deposited 50 euros (about 70 dollars). As the Icelandic currency collapsed, my parents advised me to not to take the chance and stay safe in The Netherlands. I didn’t put more money into Icesave, but I also didn’t reclaim my money.

Last week, the authorities of Iceland decided that the should acquire all banks and froze all accounts. At first, it seemed that Icesave Netherlands stayed safe, but nothing is further from the truth; at the website of Icesave, it can be read that all orders done after Monday won’t be processed.

At this very moment, Landsbanki isn’t declared bankrupt. So, it is possible that in a few weeks, Icesave will be able to process any orders. But there’s a chance that Landsbanki will be declared bankrupt and that I’ll have to reclaim my money at the Icelandic authorities. And the chance that their fund will cover all international savings, is very small, as the Icelandic crown will drop in value even more is very big.

The Icelandic prime minister stated the following: “I’m very sorry for them.” It doesn’t seem that he cares about the international savers. The Dutch national bank already contacted Iceland to talk about the situation. However, he didn’t respond to this invitation, as he “will reply shortly.”

To make things even worse, Landsbanki won’t provide any support for their Dutch division. De Volkskrant, a Dutch news paper, states that the Icelandic headquarters stated: “We’re not connected to each other anymore. You need to go to Icesave in The Netherlands”.

For now, the savers from Great Britain will have priority, as they have bigger savings. By the way, Great Britain will sue Iceland for freezing international savings. Maybe my gouvernment should join them?

To conclude this post, I’m not very lucky at the financial sphere. Maybe I should deposit all my money and keep it for myself. As I see my financial luck, Postbank/ING (my current bank, where most of my savings currently are) will go bankrupt very soon.

To finish positively, if I can’t retrieve my money, it’s ‘just’ 50 euros, 13 times less then I lost before, and not all my savings.

Update as of October 10, 2008: the Dutch national bank announced that it will help all 120,000 clients of Icesave and that all clients will get their money back. I should receive a declaration form next week, so I’ll be waiting for this.