March 28 (Bloomberg) -- Savers in the Dunfermline Building Society, Scotland’s largest customer-owned mortgage lender, will have their deposits protected by the U.K. government as it seeks to broker a sale of the company in the coming days, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said.

“Savers will be protected,” Brown said today at a press conference in Vina del Mar, Chile, where he was on an official visit. “It is important to recognize that throughout this whole crisis anyone who has saved has been protected. Our determination has been to ensure people’s savings are even safe in years to come.”

The government is seeking to arrange a merger or takeover of Dunfermline, a U.K. Treasury official said today. Authorities are looking for a “long-term solution,” said the official, who can’t be identified in line with departmental policy.

The government’s rescue of Bradford & Bingley Plc, an English mortgage lender, may be an example for Dunfermline, Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy told British Broadcasting Corp. radio today. Bradford & Bingley was nationalized in September as the global financial crisis worsened. The bank’s branches and deposits were purchased by Banco Santander SA, and the U.K. Treasury took over 41 billion pounds of mortgage loans.

The U.K. government has looked at “every possible option”, but “no other option was possible,” Murphy said of Dunfermline.

In the current financial crisis, the British government already has bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group and nationalized mortgage lender Northern Rock.

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond said in a statement he was “deeply disappointed that the Treasury now believe it isn’t possible to sustain the society as an independent institution.”

Dunfermline employs almost 500 people, half at its headquarters in Fife and half in its network of 34 branches, the BBC said.

The company, which is based next to Prime Minister Brown’s parliamentary district, has been hit by losses on commercial real-estate loans.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gonzalo Vina in Vina del Mar, Chile via the London newsroom at gvina@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 28, 2009 15:19 EDT