Banking Compensation - Who Owns What / Banking Licence

plusman

In light of the Northern Rock crisis, I'm thinking about whether or not to spread my savings around different institutions so that I am not above the £35,000 compensation limit. However I'm unclear about who owns what and whether different banks are covered by the same banking licence. For example from today (thanks to http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=553694 for the info) 4 separate divisions of HBOS - Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Birmingham Midshires and Intelligent Finance - are all covered by the one banking licence and hence the total compensation limit on the sum of deposits held with these 4 companies is £35k not 4 X £35k.

Does anybody know what financial institutions are covered by the same licence and which are totally separate?

Many Thanks

Kilty_2

Sainsbury's Bank - HBOS.
Tesco Personal Finance - RBS.

YorkshireBoy

plusman wrote: »

For example from today (thanks to http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=553694 for the info) 4 separate divisions of HBOS - Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Birmingham Midshires and Intelligent Finance - are all covered by the one banking licence...

BM & IF, being 'divisions' of Halifax, already shared the same Halifax licence prior to today.

It's BoS, Halifax (inc. BM & IF), and two other 'obscure' HBoS companies that have come together today under the same BoS held licence number.

Sainsbury's Bank - HBOS.

That's incorrect, with regard to the FSCS guarantee. Sainsburys Bank is a joint venture (50:50) with BoS, and has retained it's own banking licence number.

As such, you can safely hold £35K in each of HBoS and Sainsburys and be fully covered under the FSCS guarantee.

plusman

Yorkshireboy - thanks for the comments. However my original statement that ALL 4 divisions are covered from today is correct - 3 of them may have been covered previously under 1 licence, but I didn't refer to that; only that all 4 are now covered by 1 licence and hence together have a single £35k cap.

YorkshireBoy

plusman wrote: »

...my original statement that ALL 4 divisions are covered from today is correct.

Sorry plusman, I've modified my earlier post (we'd just been discussing a similar thing on the CC board and I misread your OP). My apologies.

regularsaver1

"The Financial Services Compensation Scheme was established under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to provide protection to customers if companies experience financial difficulties. It covers different types of investments in different ways. Where a customer has made deposits in a savings or bank account, payments under the scheme are limited to 100% of the first £2,000 and 90% of the next £33,000 of the customer’s total deposits, subject to a maximum payment to any one depositor of £31,700.

Both Halifax plc and Bank of Scotland are members of the scheme. Up to 17 September 2007, as they have separate banking licences, a customer who has savings or bank accounts with each will have separate protection under the scheme for each set of deposits. After the change on 17 September 2007, Bank of Scotland will continue as a member of the scheme. This means that if your total deposits with Bank of Scotland, including accounts in any of its divisions (for example Halifax), exceed £35,000, your protection under the scheme will be limited to the maximum payment"

Todays licence change (planned along time ago) also changed the right of off-set between companies

arjar

plusman wrote: »

......... Does anybody know what financial institutions are covered by the same licence and which are totally separate?

Many Thanks

Is there a single source of this information? It would be very useful just as the moment!