Icesave compensation plan starts

Icesave customers can soon trigger the process to get their money back

The 230,000 UK savers in the collapsed Icesave internet bank are being sent e-mails this week telling them how they can get their money back.

The bank closed at the beginning of October when its parent company, Iceland's Landsbanki, went bust and was then nationalised.

The process should see the first deposits start moving into customers' alternative bank accounts next week.

The UK government has promised that UK savers will get all their money back.

Meanwhile, thousands of people who had put money into the Isle of Man arm of Iceland's biggest bank, Kaupthing, are still in limbo.

Online process

Icesave customers will receive two e-mails from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

We will contact them if they haven't logged on to complete their payments FSCS spokeswoman Q&A: Are my savings safe?

The first will tell them that the process for retrieving their money is being launched, and the second will then give them precise details of what they should do.

"They will be asked to go onto the existing Icesave UK website, using their existing logins," an FSCS spokeswoman explained.

"They will be given a time from when they can log in and move their money," she added.

The process will be purely online, with customers being given a month to move their cash.

"If they have not done this within a month there will be a paper application process, and we will contact them if they haven't logged on to complete their payments," the FSCS spokeswoman said.

The customers, who have about