General Chat

One thing our Magician of a Chancellor is good at, is the old sleight of hand cons, you would think by now he would check with his officials before opening his mouth and letting his belly rumble, it will be interesting to see how he will "Spin" his way out of this one ;-)

At the weekend, Mr Osborne said, to quote him on the BBC, "For people serving in our military and our government out in Cyprus, we are going to compensate anyone affected by this bank tax."

However, British Service personnel with savings or property in Cyprus could still face losses despite George Osborne's promise to shield them from a raid on banks there, it has emerged.

Yesterday the Treasury refused to say that all their losses would be compensated for. An MOD spokesman said, we will cover reasonable losses incurred by service personnel who have current and savings accounts as a result of their service in Cyprus, and a Treasury spokesman said, we will compensate on reasonable losses whether they are from current or savings accounts if they are a result of serving in Cyprus.

Now British troops on the Mediterranean island are left fearing if they may still lose out as the UK Government waters down the guarantee to safeguard their cash.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295115/Cyprus-bailout-crisis-Betrayal-Our-Boys-Cyprus-Ministers-pledged-protect-UK-soldiers-cash-Now-say-savings-WILL-hit.html

Tend to think that they have made a choice to put their money into a Cyprian bank ..if it's a savings account....and have benefitted from higher interests rates as a result (as far as i can gather)....so in that instance I'd be inclined to not compensate...

Current accounts used for day to day running costs and bills for convenience most certainly should be.

*Reasonable* losses sounds about right to me.

My own view is that they should be compensated in full for any losses on both their current accounts and savings accounts, however in respect of savings accounts it should not cover any amounts transferred to Cyprus purely to take advantage of the interest rates there, as that was a form of speculation.

I also don't think they should be compensated for any other speculative financial opportunities they have invested money in that may be affected by this tax.

They should be compensated only for money that is in a Cypriot bank as a result of their deployment there. Not for any that is there for speculation as a way to beat our poor interest rates.

Osbourne is not proposing any such compensation other than for our armed forces.

Aoart from HM forces personnel there is no reason at all why British civilians in Cyprus should be compensated by the British taxpayer. Ditto Spain, Portugal and whoever goes tits up next, probably Portugal.

The danger of Cyprus going bust has been on the wall for months. It is astonishing that expatriate residents have done nothing to protect themselves. So be it.

In any case the "tax" on accounts < € 100K will be reduced to somewhere between zero and 4%.

Putin will not be pleased.
Some days the bear will eat you.

Rollo, I think this thread is only about our armed forces in Cyprus. :-S

I don't think that I referred to anyone else except those serving in our military and our government.

I was only referring to those in the military.....or those in the civil service who are stationed out there..certainly don't think that those who have chosen to live in Cyprus should be compensated in any way whatsoever.

Ah that's alright then ... except that according to the press the Treasury are backing away from the idea of compensation for armed forces personnel.

I don't think they were backing away from it totally....just changed *fully compensated* to *reasonable losses only* which I think is more than fair.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2295670/EXCLUSIVE-British-forces-hit-Cyprus-bank-bailout-tax-WILL-penny-Osborne-insists.html

Now they're back to fully compensated again by the looks of it..... lol.

I think the whole principle of the state STEALING money from the public's bank account is an utter disgrace.....surely HAS to be illegal or at the very least against their human rights..............yet not one of our MEPs or MPs is speaking out very loudly against it. ...or not as loudly as I'd like anyhow ........I despair.

I'm all for compensating the armed forces who have money in Cyprus banks but everyone else chose to move there to live and if you move 'you take your chances', as they say.

It was certainly true when I lived overseas and I would never have dreamed of asking anyone to compensate me for any losses I incurred through decisions I made.

The MOD have just flown 1 million euro out in a plane to Cyprus to help out our servicemen/women should there be problems accessing cash from the ATMs and to stop it causing hardship.

my hmmmmmmmm monitor is on overdrive !!!!

The Cyprian government have reportedly also rejected this" kind" offer from the EU to raid accounts.

Is the end of the Euro now written on the wall? Only takes one brick to start it toppling?

I think a lot of EU countries would like to return to their original currencies. The Euro does make travelling about a lot easier, though!

Been there, done that.
Before the Euro ....

The Army stopped paying soldiers 'in cash' (ie via Pay Parade / Paybooks) in the early '70's, and you had to get yourself a Bank account.

Forces personnel don't elect where they serve, so be it Cyprus, Germany, Hong Kong wherever, it was incumbent on the 'soldier' to open a local account so that he or she would get paid.

If you maintained a UK bank account, that was fine ..... but then you had to transfer money from UK to the country you were serving in via cheque (nightmare) or ....yep, a bank account!

As 'you' were paid in Sterling, when that money was deposited into a 'local' account (no plastic then), just as if you were exchanging cash, international exchange rates applied. So, for those who 'elected' to bank in Cyprus in the 70's and thereafter for quite a while, for every GB £ you earned, you were only actually given CY £0.8. If exchanging actual cash, it was worse, so local bank accounts were 'better'.

The Forces personnel are between a rock and a hard place in this. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Must admit though, don't know about Savings accounts - we never had enough for that!.

Ex Pats is a totally different story. It's their choice.

No idea on circumstances since Euro but have no doubt, 'favourable' exchange rates are applied by the banks.

Also, the banking thing doesn't apply when the military member is on 'Active service', just in case you wondered - you can get 'subs' in cash at such times, and, yes, I can answer questions about the ins and outs if anyone r e a l l y is interested (to a degree, anyway :-D - answer, that is, not degree of interest ... whoops....) ;-) :-D

I'm just a bit confused really Mr D.

If the ATMs are working...and apparently they are...even though the banks are closed...why the en masse drop from the sky of 1 million Euros?

I am totally in favour of service men/women who use Cyprian accounts through convenience being compensated 100% but i can't help thinking, with this burst of euros being dropped in, that something is happening behind the scenes that we don't yet know about...with my limited knowledge anyhow......

However I am known to be deeply suspicious and distrustful lol...so it could all well be totally routine under the circumstances and I'm just reading too much into it lol

**edit*** I've just read via the Telegraph blog that there are reports that the Cyprian banks will stay closed until 26th March !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Muffy,

I hold my hand up to having zero current experience vis a vis Forces and Cypriot banks, but imagine ( :-D) bank practices have not changed much.

As for 'dropping' a mil Euros into Cyprus .... well, that's not into the banks, that's for sure. There are Forces Pay staff out there, and it's probably they who will have 'access' to a UK based fund should it be needed. Don't imagine the money has physically been sent over unless to secure Forces facilities !!! :-)

If the Cyp banks do stay shut, that will cause some difficulties, so there may be a resurgence of 'over the table payments' perhaps ((hence an available fund)) -coz if the banks close, you can guarantee no ATM's are going to be refilled !!!

Perhaps the 'fund' was put in place to offset para 2 !! ??
Damn, could be some long queues at the Pay Office, LOL !!!!

Muffy,

Just read this on BBC News - sort of backs up my above ...

Quote "The UK has sent 1m euros (£850,000) to Cyprus as a "contingency measure" to provide military personnel with emergency loans.

The money is to be used for British personnel and their families if cash machines and debit cards stop working." unquote.

:-D

Thanks Mr D

As time goes on my feeling of discomfort with this grows.

Absolutely right that the MOD looks after it's personnel..no problem with that...

I just suspect they see there's more to come than is apparent to us just at the mo...hence the intervention..... the speculation re banks being shut for an extra week would cement this.