Over last week or so i have been following developments in the financial markets particularly in the us and uk. The collapse of the major investment banks in the us and the takeover of the third biggest high street bank in the uk seems to indicate to me that we are at the early stages of a 1929 style banking collapse. As someone who has no investments and uses the bank to pay in and withdraw funds ( i am self employed) it occurred to me that in the same way as investors need up to date market data to inform their investment decisions, depositors need up to date information if their savings are at risk of a run on the bank. With huge voliatility in the market a bank could fail very quickly - taking depositors savings with it. A website - much like a traffic watch site where members of the public post accidents and traffic jams etc - giving details of atms not working, large queues at branches could give an early indication of a run about to start. This could allow the depositor a chance to get his/her few hundred quid out before things get too chaotic. What do you think?

you are protected by the banking code for the first 39k (I think) so why worry about a few hundred quid?

Savings and debt are actually safe - it's the shareholders who are at risk.

My mum is a uk resident and has around £800k on deposit at Barclays... She heard Andrew Neil mentioning a run on major banks on bbc news and now is asking me if she should do something....

Should she be worried? Should she invest her money in government bonds?

Put it this way, if she has £800k just sitting around in a bank, she's definitely in need of professional advice - I think an ignorance of investment strategies is the only reason any person would do such a thing.

Also, she's only protected up to £50,000 by the government - after that, it's a sliding scale.

So if there was a run on Barclays, she would be screwed.

Hard to imagine that happening - Barclays has held up its share price better than RBS, HBOS and Lloyds.

But she seriously needs advice on spreading her risk - a diversified investment strategy. Damn shame I haven't passed my CeFA yet as I would have been able to help as a professional.