RCI Bank 1.5% Instant Access Savings Account

Let's start with my position that the FSCS only protects each account holder and not each bank account and not each bank in a group where the £85000 is shared across all such group bank accounts. Perhaps those who have disagreed with that would like to explain why that is wrong!


There is absolutely no difference whatsoever in avoiding investing in foreign bank accounts and investing in foreign shares and confining oneself to UK owned companies. It stems from the same narrow-mindedness!

We have already seen the effectiveness of the FSCS guarantee several times: When a bank goes under it is taken over by the regulator and that bank is then sold by the government not necessarily to the highest bidder and then we find ourselves owned by a foreign bank. And that my friends is the biggest laugh of the lot! No-one gets compensated because no-one needs to be compensated. c.f. Alliance &Leicester, Abbey National, both U.K. owned long-standing banking institutions now owned by Spanish Santander. Need I list more?

Anthorn wrote: »

Let's start with my position that the FSCS only protects each account holder and not each bank account and not each bank in a group where the £85000 is shared across all such group bank accounts. Perhaps those who have disagreed with that would like to explain why that is wrong!

I wasn't one of the people who disagreed with you, but the fact is that you are wrong when you say that £85k is always shared between banks that are part of a group. As colsten previously said, you should really familiarise yourself with how these things work before arguing against those who are more informed (and more experienced) in these matters than you are. You could start with the guide on this site: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings

Pay particular attention to point 4. "The definition of 'institution' depends on a bank's licence and giant banking conglomerates make it complex. For example, sister banks Halifax and Bank of Scotland's accounts are only covered up to £85k combined. RBS and NatWest are also sisters, but their £85k limits are SEPARATE."

There is absolutely no difference whatsoever in avoiding investing in foreign bank accounts and investing in foreign shares and confining oneself to UK owned companies. It stems from the same narrow-mindedness!

There is zero protection if you invest in a UK share and it goes bust.
There is zero protection if you invest in a foreign share and it goes bust.
There is FSCS protection if you save in a UK bank account and it goes bust.
There is FSCS protection if you save in most foreign-owned UK bank accounts and they goes bust.
However, with RCI Bank UK, there is no FSCS protection if it goes bust. This is a matter of verifiable fact. They say so on their website.

Still think there is no difference whatsoever between these protections?

We have already seen the effectiveness of the FSCS guarantee several times: When a bank goes under it is taken over by the regulator and that bank is then sold by the government not necessarily to the highest bidder and then we find ourselves owned by a foreign bank. And that my friends is the biggest laugh of the lot! No-one gets compensated because no-one needs to be compensated. c.f. Alliance &Leicester, Abbey National, both U.K. owned long-standing banking institutions now owned by Spanish Santander. Need I list more?

I agree with all of that. But the fact remains that banks that are not part of the FSCS, like RCI Bank UK, are not subject to those safeguards. We have already had experience of what happens when a bank that is not part of the FSCS goes bust. This happened with Icesave. The foreign scheme was going to renege on its promise to repay savers, leaving them without compensation, until the UK Government stepped in and used anti-terrorism legislation to (unlawfully) freeze its UK assets and use them in part to repay savers. As colsten also pointed out, it is less likely the same thing would happen in the future, because strictly it was a misuse of those powers.

Governments have a pretty strong interest in protecting their own citizens, which is why FSCS protection is so important to us in the UK. Foreign Governments are somewhat less predisposed to protecting citizens of other states, which is why passport schemes are regarded as inferior.

Edit: Also, in your example above, Santander is fully regulated by the FCA and is part of the FSCS. Nobody has any concerns about the protections offered to savers there. The situation is quite different with RCI. It is not fully regulated by the FCA and not part of the FSCS - this is the genuine added risk that you seem to be misinterpreting as narrow-mindedness.

Moneyfacts reported RCI entering the retail savings market a couple of weeks ago.

Anthorn wrote: »

But my question is what personal experience do you have of RCI Bank UK to qualify your statements about it? I'll even settle for personal experience of RCI Banque. Tip: It's in the Renault Group. Omg that's even more French lol. C'est la vie.

Why do you care about personal experiences? They are just a type of anecdotal evidence and isolated personal experiences are pretty unreliable vs. documentary evidence. Opening a bank account with an institution certainly does not make you any sort of authority about the practices of that institution or its main regulatory body. Neither does discovering the existence of the institution in question earlier than others.

Your question implies that there are unqualified statements that have been made about this bank. My reading of the thread suggests the following fully qualified statements have been made:

- RCI Bank UK is not part of the FSCS
- It is not fully regulated by the FCA
- Most other foreign banks are part of the FSCS and are fully regulated by the FCA
- Non-FSCS compensation schemes have previously failed to meet their obligations to UK savers

Which statements have been made that you believe must be further qualified?