Friday, October 03, 2008

Message force multiplier

The Republic of Ireland's unlimited liability guarantee for 6 Irish HQ'd banks has made headlines the world over and become a sensitive topic in Europe and especially the UK given the competitive advantage now held by the 6 banks in an age of nervous depositors. Hence the row over the son of the Irish Nationwide (former mutual building society) sending out an e-mail to solicit deposits to their London branch. So who got the e-mail?

Guido Fawkes --

Top o' the Credit Ratings To You

Despite Gordon's whining to the EU it is now the case that Irish banks now represent the safest place to deposit money in Europe, with a AAA guarantee from a country with the lowest national debt to GDP ratio of any AAA country.


The e-mail --

Full text of the e-mail from Mr Fingleton jnr:

As you may be aware on Tuesday 30th September the Irish Government put in place a guarantee arrangement to safeguard all deposits (retail, commercial, institutional and Interbank), covered bonds, senior debt and subordinated debt (lower tier II) with Irish Banks.

As Irish Nationwide qualifies under this scheme we now represent the safest place to deposit money in Europe with a AAA guarantee from a country with the lowest national debt to GDP ratio of any AAA country.


At least Guido didn't make it specific to Irish Nationwide.

UPDATE: The claimed fact about Ireland's debt is not true. See Table 32 (Excel file).

FINAL UPDATE: Irish Nationwide is fined €50,000 over the e-mail.

ONE MORE THING: Guido looks at Iceland, and says it is what a mass bailout does to a currency. By that logic, Ireland's debt statistics need another look too.

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