Are my savings safe with International Banks registered in the UK?

 Hi

I am concerned about a number of bank accounts that I have with what appears to be international banks registered in the U.K. I hold a number of deposits in e-save accounts, and was wondering if I am still covered by the FSA Compensation Scheme (now up to £50,000?

for example, ICIC - Reserve Bank of India, Ice Save and Heritiable - Lanksbanki Group and First Save - First Bank of Nigeria?

Also, do the following banks trade under one licence ? for example, is the FSA Compensation Scheme expanded for banks operating in the same group:

Abbey and Bradford & Bingley under one banking group - Santander Group,HSBC and First Direct - HSBC Group, Heritiable and Ice Save - Landsbanki Group,Birmingham & Midshires and I.F. - HBOS.

It's very scary! Any factual information would be appreciated.

Kind regards

Hi Gail,

The best thing to do is to read the following articles which will answer all of your questions and hopefully put your mind at rest.

Icesave - are my savings safe

Heritable - are my savings safe

Who owns who and who has a banking licence

 Hi,

It all boils down to how FSA defines international banks. FSA categorises as European union banks and Non Eurpopean banks.

In case of Non european banks, like ICICI Bank Ltd which is Indian bank and wants to do banking in UK has to apply for a sepearte license if it wants to open branches in UK and want to do transactional banking( issuing current account, debit cards etc) in UK. If the FSA gives such license to any non European bank they are automatically covered under FSA compensation scheme of £ 50,000. ICICI Bank Ltd started subsidiary ICICI Bank UK Plc to start doing banking in UK and has a valid license of FSA to do banking in UK. all customers of this bank are protected under FSA compensation scheme- £ 50,000.

The case of european banks it is bit different. FSA and the European union has a undestanding that if either one issues a license to any bank to operate in their country , the other counterpart will not ask for seperate license. For example, if bank X gets a license from country B which is part pf european union  , and now it wants to operate in UK, FSA wont issue a different license to the bank. The bank X can function with the same lincese. Under this circumsatnces, banks cover thier depositors as per the local country compensation scheme and not necessarily under FSA compensation scheme. European union compensation scheme currently stands out be approx equivalent to £ 39,000.