Independent Banks:
The banks listed in the table below each count as individual institutions as far as compensation goes, therefore offering the full level of compensation provided by their scheme, so if your cash is spread across multiple bank accounts shown in the table, you can effectively protect all of your savings.
| Alliance & Leicester | AK Bank | Allied Irish |
| Anglo Irish | Bank of Cyprus | Britannia BS |
| Buckinghamshire BS | Capital One | Cambridge BS |
| Cater Allen | Chelsea BS | Chesham BS |
| Citibank | Coutts | Coventry BS |
| Credit Unions (all separate) | Cumberland BS | Dunbar Bank |
| Dunfermline BS | Ecology BS | Egg |
| First Trust | Firstsave | Furness BS |
| Hanley BS | Harpenden BS | Hinkley and Rugby BS |
| ICICI | Investec | Ipswich BS |
| Julian Hodge Bank | Kent Reliance BS | Leeds BS |
| Leek BS | Liverpool Victoria | London Scottish Bank |
| Loughborough BS | Manchester BS | Mansfield BS |
| Market Harborough BS | Marsden BS | Melton Mowbray BS |
| Monmouthshire BS | Norwich & Peterborough BS | National Counties BS |
| Natwest | Newbury BS | Northern Bank |
| Nottingham BS | Principality BS | Progressive BS |
| Raphael Bank | Ruffler Bank | Saffron BS |
| Sainsburys | Scarborough BS (*) | Scottish BS |
| Scottish Widows | Skipton BS (*) | Standard Life |
| Stroud & Swindon BS | Teachers BS | Tesco Personal Finance (TPF) |
| Tridos | Ulster Bank | United Trust |
| West Bromwich | Whiteaway Laidlaw |
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Note (*)- The Skipton Building Society is in the process of taking over Scarborough BS - both marked (*) on the table. The completion date is not expected until February 2009, and until then they will retain separate FSA licences, providing £50,000 protection over each.
After this date it is expected that they will merge onto one licence providing savers with £50,000 protection across both, although this has not yet been confirmed.
- In Dec 2008, Nationwide, Cheshire BS and Derbyshire BS became one FSA registered institution.
On 31 Dec 2008, Yorkshire BS and Barnsley BS became one FSA registered institution.
You may also notice that some of the banks shown above do fall under the same institution, however, they have separate registrations so as far as protection is concerned the rules apply as if they were under different institutions.
BMW Savings - 1 | Newcastle BS - 1 | Cheltenham & Gloucester - 2 |
| Lloyds TSB - 2 | Clydesdale Bank - 3 | Yorkshire Bank - 3 |
| Direct Line - 4 | Royal Bank of Scotland - 4 | Virgin Money - 4 |
| First Direct - 5 | HSBC - 5 | Barclays - 6 |
| Woolwich - 6 | Smile - 7 | The Co-op - 7 |
| AA - 8 | Bank of Scotland - 8 | Birmingham Midshires - 8 |
| Halifax - 8 | Intelligent Finance - 8 | Saga - 8 |
| Abbey - 9 | Bradford & Bingley - 9 | Asda - 9 |
| Cahoot - 9 | Bank of Ireland-10 | Post Office-10 |
| Kaupthing Edge - 11 | ING Direct - 11 | Heritable Bank - 11 |
| Nationwide - 12 | Cheshire BS - 12 | Derbyshire BS - 12 |
| Scarborough BS - 13 | Skipton BS - 13 | |
| Yorkshire BS - 14 | Barnsley BS - 14 |
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on 19 January 2009, Lloyds TSB Group plc was renamed as Lloyds Banking Group, after the acquisition of HBOS plc. The FSCS licences will remain the same, so are still treated as two are separate institutions, covering up to £50,000 across each.
However, you have to remember that the core parts of former HBOS (Halifax, Bank of Scotland, B'ham Midshires, Intelligent Finance, The AA and Saga) hold a single registration, so if you have multiple accounts across more than one of these providers, you will only be liable to receive £50,000 cover overall (£100,000 for joint accounts).
Abbey and A&L
The giant Spanish bank Santander's recently bought both Abbey and Alliance & Leicester. They tell us there are 'no plans to change' their FSA registrations, meaning they will remain separated in terms of institutions so you’re protected up to £50,000 in each.
Non-UK compensation schemes
Below is a list of the level of compensation offered by non UK banks. These schemes work in much the same way as the UK schemes, whereby savers are only protected per institution. For example, accounts held across Abbey, Asda and Bradford & Bingley would only provide £50,000 compensation between them as they all fall under the Santander group.
| Bank Name | Level of compensation |
| Abbey | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Alliance & Leicester | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Asda | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Bradford & Bingley | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Citibank | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Clydesdale Bank | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Egg | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Firstsave | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| ICICI | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Yorkshire Bank | Covered by the UK's FSCS - £50,000 |
| Akbank | €100,000 (Netherlands) |
| Anglo-Irish Bank | All deposits until September 2010 (Ireland) |
| Bank of Cyprus | €20,000 (Cyprus) |
| Bank of Ireland | All deposits until Sep 2010 (Ireland) |
| ING Direct | €100,000 (Netherlands) |
| Kaupthing Edge Now part of ING Direct | €100,000 (Netherlands) |
| Post Office | All deposits until Sep 2010 (Ireland) |
| Triodos Bank | €100,000 (Netherlands) |
Disclaimer: This information was updated on 12th January 2009. At Which4u we do our best to keep up with market changes, however the sheer pace of change of ownership of banks in the last 3 months means that our information in some cases may be slightly out of date. We therefore do not take any responsibility for this information being incorrect, but will continue to monitor the situation daily to make that this is avoided where possible.
Written by Sam Gooch
Regards