Ian Jelf wrote:

In message , Al
writes
And, I put it to you that BCCI being an LDT would not have set alarm bells
ringing with you, because you did not then know that status.

Actually I did but that's neither here nor there.

Fairy nuff. Were your alarm bells loud enough to motivate you into warning
people away from BCCI? There's a bit of a libel hazard there, I should
imagine!

Nor do you
know now which banks are similarly licensed today, though I dare say it
won't take you long to find out.

This is all very long a convoluted but it comes down to my original
assertion: while it is unlikely that XYZ bank will go bust, it is not
impossible and therefore is a risk.

But less of a risk presumably than storing money elsewhere.

Agreed, if one has confidence in the system supposed to aid in the
assessment of those risks, ie, signed-off accounts, regulator's licenses
and the like.

Of course, if the quantification of that risk can be 'end run' by simple
fraud, things get much more complicated. When the auditors and regulators
are complicit, then the stage is set for the kind of rancour that followed
BCCI's fall.

Presumably the BoE didn't act because our spooks were using BCCI to follow
the Bad Guys. Moral question: is it okay to prop-up a failed bank thus
guaranteeing deposit makers will be hurt harder later in order to follow
those bad guys?

And
managing without some sort of bank account these days is pretty much
impossible I would imagine.

Not in the black economy. Every now and again I come across reports of faces
who have never claimed welfare, don't have bank accounts and just don't
appear in official records. Everything is paid for out of pocket.

I understand that a/c payee cheques can be cashed at 90% of the face value
at third parties. (For those who don't know, cheques marked 'a/c payee'
cannot ordinarily be cashed at a counter, but must be presented to one's
own bank.) How this works, I don't know: do they open an account in the
name on the cheque? Present it at overseas banks that treat them as bearer
instruments? Tippex out the name? Do they have a perfectly legal
arrangement where they are outsourced the right to accept those cheques as
long as they comply with ID requirements?
--
Al