German savers Lehman losers

German savers have been burned to the tune of €500 million (£391 million) by the collapse of Lehman Brothers after being persuaded to put their money into "safe" certificates.

Stock market-averse Germans were eager to buy up these securities, which were hawked aggressively by investment advisers as "solid investments in the retail derivative market".

The Berlin-based German Institute for Investor Protection said many investors were not clear where their money was going. Many thought they had bought a bond, others that they had invested in some complex financial machinery only their brokers knew about.

Essentially, they were bearer bonds invested in the derivatives market that depended on the creditworthiness of the issuer to return the investment.

As well as 60,000 Lehman investors in Germany, thousands of others have been hit in the certificate scandal, to a total of €1.3 billion.