PM: British gov't to protect bank savings

LONDON, Sept. 30 (Xinhua) -- The British government will do "whatever it takes" to protect people's savings in the face of the ongoing global financial crisis, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday.

He told BBC that the government had intervened where necessary and no depositors had yet lost money.

"Wherever there has been a problem, we have intervened and dealt with it," he said. "I think people can see from our actions so far that depositors have been protected. No UK depositor had lost money."

He said that with Northern Rock, Halifax Bank of Scotland and Bradford & Bingley they had taken action to protect people's savings.

Earlier, the Irish government made an emergency decision to guarantee the safety of all deposits in six of its main savings institutions for two years.

Liberal Democratic Party leader Nick Clegg and Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond called for a similar guarantee for British bank customers that all their savings and deposits are safe.

But Brown said "Let's remember, the Irish are dealing with taxpayers' money here."

"We have got to get what's right and also what's reasonable and of course we look at every intervention that is necessary to take," he added.

Under current rules in Britain, only the first 35,000 pounds (about 62,480 U.S. dollars) of an individual's money is fully protected should a bank collapse. Moves to guarantee bank deposits up to 50,000 pounds are expected shortly.

Brown declined to offer an unlimited guarantee, but pointed out that his government had not let any British depositor lose out. ( 1 U.S. dollar = 0.5602 pound)