A year after the New Zealand government pulled off its guarantee on deposits of Viaduct Capital the company has gone into receivership, raising a question mark on prospects of survival of finance companies without the protection of the Crown guarantee.In April 2009, the NZ Treasury announced it was withdrawing its guarantee on Viaduct, which meant deposits made after April 20 would not be eligible for the guarantee. However, existing deposits were guaranteed until the expiry of the guarantee term on October 12, 2010.Viaduct raised little money under a new prospectus. Thus NZ$7.3 million would be covered under the guarantee. Only NZ$500,000 of the total deposits of NZ$7.8 million is not guaranteed.Viaduct is the fifth finance company that has gone bust and triggered the government guarantee, but it is the first example of a company that apparently failed because it had no government guarantee to back it.With less than five months to go for the expiry of the guarantee and actual guarantee payments to date expected to be less than one-eighth of the latest provision of NZ$881 million in the government's books, it seems more failure news can be expected in the next few months.