Trading 212 Cash ISA FSCS question

TufftyTracks

I understand that Trading 212 hold clients money in 3 separate banks: Barclays, JP Morgan and NatWest. As it splits your ISA cash between these, does that mean you potentially have greater than £85k of cover by FSCS ? Theoretically up to £255k via the Trading 212 platform ?

eskbanker

Are they making any commitment that an individual depositor's cash will be evenly spread across all three banks, or that a depositor can choose?

Middle_of_the_Road

TufftyTracks said:

I understand that Trading 212 hold clients money in 3 separate banks: Barclays, JP Morgan and NatWest. As it splits your ISA cash between these, does that mean you potentially have greater than £85k of cover by FSCS ? Theoretically up to £255k via the Trading 212 platform ?

Yes.

eskbanker said:

Are they making any commitment that an individual depositor's cash will be evenly spread across all three banks, or that a depositor can choose?

No.

TufftyTracks

No I don't think there is any control, probably just a split based on the a their best terms with each bank. Currently 16:40:44 between JP Morgan: Barclays: NatWest on my account. 

borderdave

I am rather confused by their FSCS cover.  They state they use 3 banks, but they can also hold your money in a qualifying money market fund (QMMF) as I understand it.  That was the reason why "The Top cash ISAs 2024/25" article on MSE did not recommend Plum.  

It may be that they only use QMMF for cash held in their Stocks ISA, and not in the specific Cash ISA, but I would definitely like that confirmed before I use it.

As regards the use of 3 banks, I also could not find any commitment to spread your money between them, so it could presumably all be held in one bank, therefore, in effect, the £85k limit remains.

TheBanker

borderdave said:

I am rather confused by their FSCS cover.  They state they use 3 banks, but they can also hold your money in a qualifying money market fund (QMMF) as I understand it.  That was the reason why "The Top cash ISAs 2024/25" article on MSE did not recommend Plum.  

It may be that they only use QMMF for cash held in their Stocks ISA, and not in the specific Cash ISA, but I would definitely like that confirmed before I use it.

As regards the use of 3 banks, I also could not find any commitment to spread your money between them, so it could presumably all be held in one bank, therefore, in effect, the £85k limit remains.

They only use QMFFs for the Stocks and Shares ISA and the non-ISA investment account. The Cash ISA does not use QMFFs.

You are right that they don't commit to splitting your money between the three banks in any particular way, or indeed to continue using those three banks. But you can see how your money is spit and so could monitor it and withdraw some if you don't like where they've put it. (But, I assume they might not withdraw it in equal proportions. If, say, you ended up with £100k with Natwest and £20k with JPM, and asked for £15k back, they could take it from the JPM 'pot' which would not help you)

MiserlyMartin

I could have sworn that when you press the piggy bank icon in the app for cash ISA it took you to a screen that showed you which banks have your money, but I'm looking today all it goes is an overview of the total cash, rate and no other info. Unless I dreamt it....

gravel_2

MiserlyMartin said:

I could have sworn that when you press the piggy bank icon in the app for cash ISA it took you to a screen that showed you which banks have your money, but I'm looking today all it goes is an overview of the total cash, rate and no other info. Unless I dreamt it....

Check again as it's showing for me now. I think it disappears occasionally, possible certain times of day or when they are rebalancing.

palemist

The list keeps getting longer, Lloyds, BNY, Investec and Santander have joined the list. 

Ch1ll1Phlakes

That's the list of banks my T212 Cash ISA is held with. Those as I've less than £10 pounds with them at the moment some of these banks hold only a few pence.

QMMFs are not used for the Cash ISA, only the stocks and shares ISA

While theoretically you could hold more than £85k with T212 as it would be split between many providers I wouldn't recommend it and all it takes is for T212 to decide they want to use less banks or maybe even only one (these are both unlikely but could happen) and your excess funds wouldn't be protected.