FSCS

Barkin

Bigwheels1111 said:

Barkin said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

As usaul people get fixated on £170,000 or £85,000 protection.

Erm... because that's what's protected? 

Thanks for that very helpful comment. Maybe you could afford to loose that much interest.

Would you like to know your money plus interest is covered and take appropriate action.

This thread is discussing a hypothetical situation (the hypothetical money could be in a hypothetical account paying no interest) and querying the max. FSCS protection limit in that hypothetical situation. 

Whichever way you bake it, that's £85k/170k - no? 

Sure, be aware that interest could take the total over the FSCS limit, but it's not relevant to this discussion. 

1spiral

wmb194 said:

Brie said:

And don't forget that it's £85k for each banking group not just a named bank.  So £85k in total for NatWest AND RBS as they are the same banking group.  

No, per licence. NatWest and RBS are each covered by separate licences.

From MSE's article on FCSC coverage:

"NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank are all part of the NatWest Banking Group, but only NatWest and Ulster Bank share protection – RBS has its own, separate protection."

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/

This Bank of England document is from 2021 but it gives the idea and is probably largely still correct:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/authorisations/which-firms-does-the-pra-regulate/2021/list-of-banking-brands-june-2021.pdf

Is there a comprehensive list that covers Building Societies as well? I use https://www.which.co.uk/static/tools/new-reviews/who-owns-who-banking/who-owns-who.html but even that has omissions e.g. Monument is missing.

DullGreyGuy

boingy said:

I've said it in another thread but I do think that the protection should be per brand name rather than per licence. Customers shouldn't have to research whether banks are in the same group and whether that group has more than one licence.

But the protection is created by fees paid for the license and levies charged. You want to change the rules to per "brand" (and you'll have to be clear what counts as a different brand) then you also need to change the charging model so that the fund has enough monies for when a single license, multi-brand company fails. 

eskbanker

1spiral said:

wmb194 said:

Brie said:

And don't forget that it's £85k for each banking group not just a named bank.  So £85k in total for NatWest AND RBS as they are the same banking group.  

No, per licence. NatWest and RBS are each covered by separate licences.

From MSE's article on FCSC coverage:

"NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank are all part of the NatWest Banking Group, but only NatWest and Ulster Bank share protection – RBS has its own, separate protection."

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings/

This Bank of England document is from 2021 but it gives the idea and is probably largely still correct:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/authorisations/which-firms-does-the-pra-regulate/2021/list-of-banking-brands-june-2021.pdf

Is there a comprehensive list that covers Building Societies as well? I use https://www.which.co.uk/static/tools/new-reviews/who-owns-who-banking/who-owns-who.html but even that has omissions e.g. Monument is missing.

This subject comes up from time to time - a thread last month had a link to the January 2023 list but even that hasn't survived, so the most recent lists I can find are from July 2022:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6476425/fscs-85k-protection

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/authorisations/which-firms-does-the-pra-regulate/2022/list-of-banking-brands-july-2022.pdf

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/authorisations/which-firms-does-the-pra-regulate/2022/list-of-building-society-brands-july-2022.pdf

Monument wasn't included at that stage but is on the current simplified master list that, irritatingly, doesn't record the sharing of licences:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/prudential-regulation/authorisations/which-firms-does-the-pra-regulate/2023/list-of-banks/banks-list-2311.pdf

Brie

wmb194 said:

Brie said:

And don't forget that it's £85k for each banking group not just a named bank.  So £85k in total for NatWest AND RBS as they are the same banking group.  

No, per licence. NatWest and RBS are each covered by separate licences.

From MSE's article on FCSC coverage:

"NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank are all part of the NatWest Banking Group, but only NatWest and Ulster Bank share protection – RBS has its own, separate protection."

Interesting! 

Completely contradicts what the manager at the local Natwest told me about our RBS/V1 account!!  We were told that NW & RBS & V1 were essentially all the same and £85k was the limit for all 3!

friolento

Brie said:

wmb194 said:

Brie said:

And don't forget that it's £85k for each banking group not just a named bank.  So £85k in total for NatWest AND RBS as they are the same banking group.  

No, per licence. NatWest and RBS are each covered by separate licences.

From MSE's article on FCSC coverage:

"NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Ulster Bank are all part of the NatWest Banking Group, but only NatWest and Ulster Bank share protection – RBS has its own, separate protection."

Interesting! 

Completely contradicts what the manager at the local Natwest told me about our RBS/V1 account!!  We were told that NW & RBS & V1 were essentially all the same and £85k was the limit for all 3!

If you remember the name of the manager, raise a complaint, as he needs some education.

boingy

DullGreyGuy said:

boingy said:

I've said it in another thread but I do think that the protection should be per brand name rather than per licence. Customers shouldn't have to research whether banks are in the same group and whether that group has more than one licence.

But the protection is created by fees paid for the license and levies charged. You want to change the rules to per "brand" (and you'll have to be clear what counts as a different brand) then you also need to change the charging model so that the fund has enough monies for when a single license, multi-brand company fails. 

Maybe it should be one licence per brand. It's just that the present system puts the onus on customers to figure it out and this thread is a perfect illustration of the confusion that causes. Folks will only find out they are not as covered as they thought when it all goes wrong.

friolento

boingy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

boingy said:

I've said it in another thread but I do think that the protection should be per brand name rather than per licence. Customers shouldn't have to research whether banks are in the same group and whether that group has more than one licence.

But the protection is created by fees paid for the license and levies charged. You want to change the rules to per "brand" (and you'll have to be clear what counts as a different brand) then you also need to change the charging model so that the fund has enough monies for when a single license, multi-brand company fails. 

Maybe it should be one licence per brand. It's just that the present system puts the onus on customers to figure it out and this thread is a perfect illustration of the confusion that causes. Folks will only find out they are not as covered as they thought when it all goes wrong.

How do you define brand, and how would people work out which companies belong to which brand?

Why can’t consumers be asked to check the FSCS site for the company they are considering for a deposit ? 

Why can’t banks be asked to spell out whether they share their FSCS protection with a different company?

DullGreyGuy

boingy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

boingy said:

I've said it in another thread but I do think that the protection should be per brand name rather than per licence. Customers shouldn't have to research whether banks are in the same group and whether that group has more than one licence.

But the protection is created by fees paid for the license and levies charged. You want to change the rules to per "brand" (and you'll have to be clear what counts as a different brand) then you also need to change the charging model so that the fund has enough monies for when a single license, multi-brand company fails. 

Maybe it should be one licence per brand. It's just that the present system puts the onus on customers to figure it out and this thread is a perfect illustration of the confusion that causes. Folks will only find out they are not as covered as they thought when it all goes wrong.

It would fly in the face of years of consolidation and reduction in regulated entities which reduces costs. 

The problem is that the PRA cannot come in and deal with just a brand and not the whole company. Capital calculations, asset ownership etc has to be done at a company level, anything to brand is a somewhat arbitrary split/allocation. They couldn't put one brand into special measures whilst leaving the other brands unimpacted. 

If we were to change the FSCS protection to simply be £150k protection per person rather than per person per entity I very much doubt it would drive banks to take on high risk strategies or customers to double their investment in such products. It'd be easier to strip the per bank aspect and just increase the limit. 

boingy

DullGreyGuy said:

boingy said:

DullGreyGuy said:

boingy said:

I've said it in another thread but I do think that the protection should be per brand name rather than per licence. Customers shouldn't have to research whether banks are in the same group and whether that group has more than one licence.

But the protection is created by fees paid for the license and levies charged. You want to change the rules to per "brand" (and you'll have to be clear what counts as a different brand) then you also need to change the charging model so that the fund has enough monies for when a single license, multi-brand company fails. 

Maybe it should be one licence per brand. It's just that the present system puts the onus on customers to figure it out and this thread is a perfect illustration of the confusion that causes. Folks will only find out they are not as covered as they thought when it all goes wrong.

It would fly in the face of years of consolidation and reduction in regulated entities which reduces costs. 

The problem is that the PRA cannot come in and deal with just a brand and not the whole company. Capital calculations, asset ownership etc has to be done at a company level, anything to brand is a somewhat arbitrary split/allocation. They couldn't put one brand into special measures whilst leaving the other brands unimpacted. 

If we were to change the FSCS protection to simply be £150k protection per person rather than per person per entity I very much doubt it would drive banks to take on high risk strategies or customers to double their investment in such products. It'd be easier to strip the per bank aspect and just increase the limit. 

Some of you folks will argue against anything, just for the sake of it.