Are we protected by the FSCS with £300k in our TSB accounts?

A reader asked: We have £300,000 in three different joint accounts with TSB. Are we protected [by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)]? Or is there a £170,000 limit per institution? Should we move £130,000 to a different bank if we have more than £170,000 in one bank?

You are right to be mindful of how much money you have in each financial institution. This is because there are limits to the amount of cash you are entitled to claim back if the institution holding your nest egg went bust.

The body that provides this financial protection in the UK is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). It has recently changed its rules about how much it protects. Based on your question it looks like your information on the FSCS protection limits is a bit out of date.

Under the old rules, in place since 2017, the deposit protection limit – which represents the maximum amount of money the FSCS typically protects should a depositor’s bank, building society or credit union become insolvent – was set at £85,000 per person, per financial institution. Meaning a joint account would have been protected up to £170,000, as you say.

However on 1 December 2025 the FSCS deposit protection rose to £120,000 per person, per financial institution.

This means that if you hold deposits or savings with a UK-authorised bank, building society or credit union and it goes out of business, the FSCS can compensate you up to the new limit of £120,000 per eligible person, per authorised firm.

Now, to your question about the current state of play with joint accounts. The deposit protection limit applies on a per person basis. So, if it is a joint account, each account holder is protected up to £120,000. In other words, a joint account with two holders would be protected up to £240,000.

A spokesperson for your bank, TSB, confirmed this in a statement: ““With the recent Financial Services Compensation Scheme changes, each individual now has savings protected up to £120,000 per bank. This applies across all accounts, so two customers who have a joint account or multiple joint accounts with a bank are protected up to £240,000 together.”

However at £300,000 your total deposits with TSB total more than the £240,000 you are protected for.

What does this mean for you? The advice on the Bank of England website is: “People with eligible deposits that add up to more than the protection limit may wish to split their funds across different Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA)-authorised firms.”

So to be safe it would be a good idea to find a new home for £60,000 of your cash.

An important additional thing to note is the FSCS limit is per person, per UK-authorised firm, not per brand; multiple brands under one license (like Halifax & Bank of Scotland) share the limit, but separate licenses (like NatWest & RBS) have separate limits.

(Also there is also temporary protection above the £120,000 limit for certain types of deposits classified as temporary high balances (THBs). For example the proceeds from a private property sale. This temporary protection – which lasts for six months – will be up to £1.4 million in most cases, although there is no limit for THBs that are linked to personal injury or incapacity.)