Does Post Office Savings & NS&I Have Seperate FSCS?

woodbine66

Much as the title really. I have maximum holding of Premium Bonds and savings in Post Office Savings. Are they seperately covered by FSCS for £85,000, or lumped together?

Thanks for any advice.

afis1904

Post office savings is with the bank of Ireland so yes, they'd be separate.

surreysaver

NS&I is backed and protected by the Government anyway, not FSCS

wmb194

NS&I isn't covered by the FSCS. The same as gilts, it has the direct backing of the Treasury with no limit.

woodbine66

Thanks for all your replies. Reassuring to know in these uncertain times. Glad I will be just losing money through inflation because of poor interest rates rather than anyone going belly up.

Tildaplum

Back before the 2008 crash i had 3-year bonds with the post office (fscs protected).

After the crash and Northern Rock queues the fscs protection was improved so that all your money was protected up to I think 85k

About a year later, and well before the bonds were due to mature, I was informed by letter that the fscs protection was being cancelled and the protection was being 'transferred' to the Irish protection scheme (100,000 euros)

So don't assume you will get fscs protection on post office savings if the s hits the f.

woodbine66

While we're on the subject, should we be worried about the banks in the unfolding situation? My mother in law sold her house and has all the money in the bank at the moment to pay for a nursing home. Does make you think.

Linton

Temporary extra money up to £1M from selling a house is covered by FSCS for 6 months.  In any case having a very large amount of money just sat there is probably not the best thing to do anyway.

colsten

Tildaplum said:

Back before the 2008 crash i had 3-year bonds with the post office (fscs protected).

After the crash and Northern Rock queues the fscs protection was improved so that all your money was protected up to I think 85k

About a year later, and well before the bonds were due to mature, I was informed by letter that the fscs protection was being cancelled and the protection was being 'transferred' to the Irish protection scheme (100,000 euros)

So don't assume you will get fscs protection on post office savings if the s hits the f.

PO banking and saving is now run by Bank of Ireland UK, which has the full £85K FSCS protection, so no need to worry about the safety of your deposits.

NB. This is not a recommendation for any PO savings accounts.

Tildaplum

Agreed. Not to say they won't pull the same trick and transfer the protection back to the parent bank ie Eire.

bowlhead99

Tildaplum said:

Agreed. Not to say they won't pull the same trick and transfer the protection back to the parent bank ie Eire.

They would have to tell you if they were going to do that, which would give you adequate opportunity to move your money to an institution with a UK banking licence.

I think it's unlikely that UK post offices would replace their core offering of deposit accounts to something exclusively backed by foreign financial institutions without a UK banking licence and thus losing the UK FSCS protection. 

Any suggestion to the contrary (ie that it will happen at all, or that it will happen without adequate notice) is scaremongering IMHO.