Compensation limit for savers to increase in the new year

How much money does the scheme hold or have access to in total?

i.e. If a major high street bank failed, is there enough to give everyone their money up to £85k, or even £50k?

I assume the Financial Services Compensation Scheme is backed by the Government who act as guarantor of last resort so that everyone gets their money up to £85k.

Presumably too the scheme has been enhanced as a result of an EU Directive issued by those bad old people in Brussels?

Somehow I doubt if it would have happened if it had been left to a British Government alone.

What's also required is 100,000 Euro per 'brand' and not per institution. It's absurd that savers are expected to keep tabs on which brands are owned by who, so as to ensure they don't inadvertently breach the (current) £50K per FSA registration.

I agree with Neil53 - something has to be done to ensure savers do not unknowingly exceed the limit per holding bank.

If the government expects people to save meaningful amounts into their pension funds, then this limit is woefully inadequate.

Is this just increasing for savers ?

What about investors ?

I heard investors may decrease to £40,000.

In the meantime as from the 29th September the Post Office (i.e. Bank of Ireland) is renaging on the terms of fixed interest savings taken out prior to 2010 by unilaterally reducing the cover from 100,000 euros to £50,000.

Their response to complaints is - if you don't like it close your accounts and take you're money elsewhere (of course you will not get the rates of return you had contracted to prior to 2010). This looks like a sam to get out of paying the interest levels contracted prior to 2010.

The FSA (Fat Salary Agency ) won't even respond to complaints about this. The Post Office say objections may be directed to the High Court in London in November.

I wonder if Vince Cable has engaged in hysterical rhetoric against banker's bonus payments to deflect from these shenanigans at the Post Office.

Perhaps the amount guaranteed should reflect the amount of spivving that Vince Cable is on about. That way savers could bank with lower risk banks if they wished.

stan

The latest news is a step in the right direction but I cannpt see why all our savings cannot be covered in full

After all the banks have free use of our money in many cases for years and years and must earn colossal amounts of interest so its no hardship to them to have to compensate us , if and when anything goes wrong

The answer to Simon B's question is, "probably not".

The whole damn thing is just one giant ponzi scheme.

I got my £48k from a Keydata claim but lost £100k. Could I go back for another bite of cherry? Should a Keydata victim who has not made a claim wait until January & would he get 85k?

To Hengist, Financial Ombudsman Service limits are higher than FSCS, currently. If yuo were 'advised' to invest into Keydata then you may have been better going down the normal complaints process then to FOS rather than FSCS. FSCS compensation payments tend to be lower across the board than when firms responsible for the advice compensate. For instance, many endowment mis-selling complainanst received a few thousand less going through FSCS than they would have received had the original adviser still beeen trading. The FSC try to minimise, where possible, compensation payments because they are a fund of last resort.