Who Does Britain Own Money To?

Broad question I know, but who, as in people or countries or organisations, does the British government owe money to? Is there a list of the information anywhere?

Reply to
Maria
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Maria gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Anybody who's bought a government bond would be on that list. As, indeed, would anybody who's got money in NS&I.

You might want to narrow the scope of your query a bit.

Reply to
Adrian

Hmm...yes, thanks. Ok...knowing little about it, not sure how to phrase the question in a way it can be answered! Apart from anything I'm not sure the information is recorded anywhere public. To whom does Britain owe the greatest single amount of debt? ;)

Reply to
Maria

This article answers is for the US - I'd be interested in something similar for the UK, but not sure if it even exists!

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Reply to
Maria

I'd try the websites of the Bank of England and/or HM Treasury

Reply to
Fergus O'Rourke

Anyone with a Post Office Savings Account, or anyone with Premium Bonds.

But the vast bulk of government loans are in 'gilts' which are British government bonds, so called because they have a gilt edge on the certificate.

Sold in units of £100,000 each.

Anyone can buy them.

Reply to
William Black

£100,000? They are typically in units of £100 surely.

Robert

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Reply to
RobertL

We owe money to all three - people, countries and organisations.

We owe to anyone holding a UK bond, and it must be paid at the redemption date written on the bond. We also pay interest whenever the coupon (interest) falls due, except on zero-coupon bonds - this can be quarterly or some other regular date.

Pension funds and insurance companies in the UK and abroad currently hold

400 billion pounds worth of our bonds. Ordinary people have about 10 billion pounds worth. Sovereign wealth funds (such as Abu Dhabi's fund) and banks like the China Investment Corporation own some. I'm not sure how Bank of England bond holdings are categorised in the official figures, but they must have risen as a proportion of the total, since quantitative easing involved selling bonds to the BoE.

UK bonds have redemption dates of between 1 month and 50 years. So owners can't suddenly decide they want to redeem them, and demand the cash. If the UK government does its housekeeping properly, and the bonds are attractive enough, we can potter along issuing and redeeming bonds until the end of time.

Who will own the bond on the redemption date, and therefore get the money? That depends. Bonds can be traded like IOUs, in a massive "over-the-counter" market. It's whoever holds it on the right date.

There's a table showing absolute values of outstanding bonds in any of the quarterly reports at the link below. Look for the section called "Distribution of gilt holdings".

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Reply to
DVH

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