Bank of Ireland has furnished us with details of how its SSIAs did up to the end of February. This period takes in just two days of the recent stock markets downturn. But, as you can see from the table, equity-based SSIAs are down a few hundred.

This is the worst time for SSIAs to sustain this kind of downturn - when they are reaching maturity and have furthest to fall.

However, even after the setback, equities still look a far better bet than safe-haven deposits. In fact, at the end of February, BoI's equity-based SSIAs were well over two grand up on the deposits version.

Bank of Ireland's figures are highlighted here because they have been helpful enough to supply them.

They should not reflect negatively in any way on the performance of BoI.

All equity-based SSIAs will have fallen in recent weeks, probably by similar amounts.