June Dean stood outside a branch of Bradford & Bingley Plc in the northern London suburb of Finchley after taking out 10,000 pounds ($18,000) of her savings, and asked where her money will be safest.

Her bank followed Northern Rock Plc into state ownership yesterday after credit markets froze up and left it struggling to fund its operations. It joined three other European lenders that have been rescued by governments this week.

``I took my money out of Northern Rock and put it in here,'' Dean, 80, said yesterday as she waited on the sidewalk for her husband to collect her in his blue Nissan hatchback. ``Now I'm trying to decide which building society will be ruined next.''

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling promised all customer deposits will be guaranteed, regardless of the U.K.'s 35,000-pound compensation limit for savings accounts. The U.K.'s biggest lender to landlords was the last of the so-called building societies that went public under a law introduced by Margaret Thatcher, Finchley's Member of Parliament for 33 years.

By mid-morning, customers bustled around the three cashier- branch sited on a busy main street. Most were retirees clutching bags of shopping, inquiring about the security of their savings.

Some snickered at a sign in the window that advertised a fixed-rate bond as ``Fixed, Done, Sorted,'' while considering moving their savings to Halifax, Abbey National and NatWest, all of them a minute's walk away.

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