Depositors in the biggest bank failure in Manx history have had a chance to hear from the people running it at the time of the crash.

The second sitting of the Tynwald Select Committee on Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander heard from managing director Aiden Doherty, financial officer Andrew Brown and non-executive directors Donald Gelling and John Cashen.

It was the first time the directors had spoken in public since the collapse and, led by Mr Doherty, they launched a robust defence of their handling of events.

The picture which emerged was one of trusting directors and the Financial Supervision Commission being let down by a lack of communication from the United Kingdom's Financial Services Authority.

The directors related how, even on the day it closed its doors, the bank was, on paper, solvent and fairly stable.

However, the UK Treasury's decision to transfer Kaupthing UK's assets to a trust pushed KSF (IOM) into insolvency on October 8, 2008.

It wasn't until January of this year that the directors discovered the existence of the trust, indicative they said of the 'cloud of secrecy' under which the British authority's dealings with the Kaupthing Group were conducted.