Quote Originally Posted by SJWhiteley View Post
As, I am sure, the Cypriots money was, too.

The 'protected by law' thing means nothing. The 'protection' scheme is simply designed to protect the depositor from depositing their money with a scam artist. Since the government, doing the protecting, has a vested interest in the bank, they created regulations to protect themselves from having to make such a payout, through regulation ... and so on. This is insurance. And, as we know, the insurance industry is a stand-up pillar of the economic community. The very nature of insurance favors the grantor of the insurance.

The reality is to examine the capitol and cash of your 'investment'. That is, do they actually have your money, or is it invested in a get rich quick scheme?
Cyprus is a bit of a different case, their banks were 3 times the size of there whole economy, which is clearly not sustainable. So when they went bust there wasn't enough money in the whole of Cyprus to cover the losses. The UK while over reliant on banking it still is only about 20 % of our economy.

Anyway regardless of compensation schemes the CO OP group which owns the CO OP Bank is huge and very profitable with something like £7 billion just sitting in the bank, they are no more likely to go bust than China is right now.