A guide to Who Owns Whom among the banks and what your compensation rights are

From October 7, 2008, your savings are guaranteed by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to £50,000 with any company holding an individual banking licence.  The protection applies per person per institution – not per account.

Joint accounts are divided 50:50 between the account holders. If you have one joint account your guarantee is effectively doubled to £100,000. If one party has another account with the same institution this will affect the amount of compensation available on the joint account.

So if Mr A has £35,000 with Bank X, and Mr & Mrs A jointly have £65,000, also with Bank X the FSCS compensation will be limited  to £50,000 for Mr A and £32,500 for Mrs A, not to the £100,000 which some would expect given that the limit is £50,000 per person.

Different brands, same company, one compensation figure

Where you have accounts with different brands/subsidiaries of one company, which operate under a single licence, your compensation is limited to a total of  £50,000 with that company.

For instance, all HBOS brands operate under a single licence, so if you had £30,000 savings with Halifax and £30,000 with Intelligent Finance, only £50,000 of the £60,000 total would be guaranteed in the extremely unlikely event of an HBOS default.

By contrast, HSBC operates the HSBC, First Direct and M&S Money brands: HSBC and First Direct operate under one licence while M&S Money is separately licensed.

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KEY

Company owning savings brand or subsidiary (non-savings divisions may differ)
Brand or subsidiary (joint authorisation shown on the same line)

separate authorisation *      (shown on a separate line with an asterisk)

Abbey (Santander)
Abbey, Cahoot, Bradford & Bingley savings

Alliance & Leicester*

Cater Allen*

Bank of Ireland
Bank of Ireland, Post Office

Barclays
Barclays Bank, Woolwich

Citigroup
Citibank

Egg*

Co-operative Bank
Co-operative Bank; Smile

HBOS
Bank of Scotland, Halifax, AA, Birmingham Midshires, Intelligent Finance, Saga
Sainsbury's Bank*

HSBC

HSBC, First Direct
M&S Money*

Lloyds TSB
Lloyds TSB, Scottish Widows, C&G

National Australia Bank
Yorkshire Bank, Clydesdale Bank

Newcastle BS
Newcastle BS, BMW Savings

RBS Group

Royal Bank of Scotland, Lombard  Direct Line, Virgin Money (savings)

Coutts*

Tesco Personal Finance*
Natwest*

Ulsterbank*

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Note that if you have a mortgage or other debt outstanding with the defaulting organisation, the amount of debt outstanding is deducted from the compensation you would receive. So, if you had savings of £30,000 and a mortgage of £30,000 with the same organisation operating under a single licence, you would not receive any compensation if the company was declared in default.

Overseas banks

Some overseas banks operate in the UK under a UK banking licence, and others operate under a "passported" scheme from their own EU country. In the case of "passported" schemes you would first have to claim compensation under the overseas country's national depositor compensation scheme and, if it less than £50,000, the sum you receive would be topped up to £50,000 by the UK scheme.

Anglo Irish Bank (Ireland)

Bank of Ireland (Ireland)

From September 30, 2008  all retail, commercial, institutional and interbank deposits,with the following banks and building societies:

• Allied Irish Bank,
• Bank of Ireland,
• Anglo Irish Bank,
• Irish Life and Permanent,
• Irish Nationwide Building Society and
• the Educational Building Society

are 100% guaranteed by the Irish Government for two years.

 

Details of the Irish scheme

 

The following overseas-owned  banks operating in Ireland are covered by the Irish Deposit Protection Scheme which safeguards 100% of deposits up to a max. €100,000

• Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Ltd t/a Halifax
• First Active plc 
• IIB Bank plc
• Postbank Ireland Ltd
• Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd
  and
• Credit Unions

Other passported schemes apply to:

Icesave (Iceland)

Iceland's parent bank Landsbanki is in administration and payments in and out of UK-held accounts have been suspended. The UK is currently in negotiations about compensation for savers.

 

ING Direct  (including the former Icelandic Banks Kaupthing Edge and Heritable, which have been acquired by ING) (Netherlands)

The Dutch scheme has been raised and will refund €100,000 in full

 

Danish Banks

Unlimited guarantee.

Overseas banks authorised in the UK:

(so the full £50,000 would be payable by the UK FSCS)

Abbey
Capital One
Citibank

FNB Bank
ICICI Bank

Offshore banks in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man

Irish and UK guarantee schemes do not extend offshore.  Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Monaco and Malta may not be covered by either UK or European compensation schemes.

Jersey has no protection scheme but proposes  to introduce a guarantee for full protection soon but only for Jersey residents.

Guernsey has no protection scheme at present. The exception is Northern Rock, Guernsey which has the full 100% guarantee from the UK Government (see below).

The Isle of Man has a Depositors Compensation Scheme (DCS). The compensation limit for  individual depositors was raised to a maximum of £50,000 each. Non-individual depositors – including charities and businesses can receive a maximum of £20,000, (compared to £15,000 under the original 1991 scheme). Please see the updated Compensation of Depositors Regulations 2008.

100% Guarantee from the UK Government

NS&I – National Savings
Northern Rock (until further notice)

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