Darling must reassure savers

David Kuo, Head of Personal Finance at money website Fool.co.uk, says: "It is encouraging that the UK government has learnt from past mistakes. Its timely intervention at Bradford & Bingley has averted another potentially embarrassing run on a British bank.

"However, questions have to asked as to whether correspondingly swift actions would be possible if a troubled financial institution was neither British nor a bank.

"We therefore urge the UK Government to give similar assurances to customers at foreign-owned deposit-taking companies and also to savers at any one of the UK's 59 building societies.

"In these difficult times, consumers need to be confident that their investments are safe, regardless of whether their money is deposited in a UK bank, a foreign-owned bank or a building society."