The collapse of the Icelandic banking system has left Oxford University facing losses of up to £30m, it emerged today.
The university has confirmed that five per cent of its cash deposits are invested in three of the country's banks.
It is now calling on the regulator of universities to help solve the crisis.
Oxford is one of 12 universities in the UK facing total losses of £77m, after depositing funds in Landsbanki, Glitnir, Kaupthing Singer, and Friedlander.
Some of the cash belonged to 17 individual colleges but Giles Kerr, Oxford’s director of finance, said colleges were being told that the university’s cash pool has sufficient liquidity to meet their requirements.
Oxford has £600m in cash deposits and an overall endowment wealth of around £3.4 billion.
Mr Kerr has written to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) urging it to protect the higher education sector from the impact of the crisis.
The university has made no Icelandic deposits in the past 18 months and said its policy was to have a wide portfolio of deposits in order to spread risk.
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