More than 30,000 DSB bank account holders have applied for an advance on the guarantee scheme.

Savers with less than 100,000 euros in the bankrupt bank will be totally reimbursed by the scheme. Most of the 110,000 savers by far had savings under this amount. Altogether, these savers had 3.6 billion euros in the bank. The DSB bank was declared bankrupt last week after a number of last ditch attempts to revive it failed. The bankruptcy brought down the rest of owner Dirk Scheringa's empire. He owned current national champion football club AZ as well as a realism art museum.

The bank went bankrupt after self-appointed financial watch dog Pieter Lakemen called on acountholders to withdraw their savings. Thousands of people had gotten into financial difficulty because of DSB's policy to trick customers into taking out unnecessary and expensive single premium insurance policies as part of their mortgages. As a result, these mortgages often far exceeded the value of the underlying property, making it impossible for the owners to sell their homes without going into debt. Mr Lakeman said that making the bank go under was the best way of ending their financial ordeal.

Photo: DSB bank - ANP