The short answer, and why it is not the whole answer
If your money sits with an authorised UK bank, building society or credit union, the FSCS covers eligible deposits up to £120,000 per person per authorised firm. If it sits with an electronic money institution or a payment institution, the FSCS does not cover it at all.
That second sentence surprises people, because the account looks identical. It has a sort code, an account number, a card and an app. What differs is the permission the firm holds, and that determines what happens to your balance if the firm fails.
What changed, twice, in the last year
Two things moved recently, and most of what is written online predates both.
The limit rose on 1 December 2025, from £85,000 to £120,000 per eligible person per authorised firm. Joint accounts went from £170,000 to £240,000, and the temporary high balance limit, which covers short-lived spikes such as a property sale, rose from £1 million to £1.4 million for failures on or after that date. Any page still quoting £85,000 is stale, and there are a great many of them.
Separately, Revolut exited mobilisation on 11 March 2026, receiving approval from the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority to launch as a UK bank after holding a restricted licence since 2024. During mobilisation a bank can hold only a token amount of customer deposits, which is why the question was worth asking before and why the answer is different now.
Bank, EMI or PI: how to tell which you have
The FCA register is the only reliable source, and it takes about a minute.
Look up the firm and read its permissions rather than its marketing. A bank holds a deposit-taking permission. An electronic money institution is authorised to issue e-money. An authorised payment institution can execute payments but not issue e-money. Product names are no guide: an account can have a sort code, an IBAN and a debit card and still be e-money, because those are payment features rather than deposit features.
Two details that catch people out. The limit applies per authorised firm, not per brand, and several UK banking brands share a single licence, so holding balances at two of them may not double your cover. And a group holding a banking licence does not automatically mean your particular balance is a deposit with the licensed entity, which is worth confirming rather than assuming.
What protects e-money instead
Money at an EMI or a payment institution is protected by safeguarding rather than compensation, and the distinction is worth understanding properly because the two fail in different ways.
A bank may lend your deposit out. That is the business model, and the FSCS exists to compensate you when the risk in it goes wrong. An e-money institution cannot lend your money at all. It has to hold customer funds separately from its own, in designated safeguarding accounts at credit institutions or in liquid safe assets, so the money is simply still there to be returned.
Since 7 May 2026 those firms have operated under the FCA's CASS 15 rules: daily internal reconciliations of safeguarded funds, a monthly regulatory return, and an annual safeguarding audit by a qualified auditor. That is a much harder regime than the guidance it replaced.
What safeguarding does not give you is a compensation scheme. If the ring-fence has been maintained properly, the money is there and an administrator returns it ahead of the firm's general creditors. If it has not, there is no fund that makes you whole. Our page on safeguarding sets out the mechanics in full.
So which is safer?
The question does not have a general answer, which is why anyone giving you one confidently is selling something.
A bank deposit is insured but lent out. A safeguarded balance is not lent out but not insured. For a balance under £120,000 at a single authorised bank, the compensation scheme is a genuinely strong protection and easy to rely on. Above that limit, at one firm, the insurance stops mattering and the question becomes what the firm does with your money, which is where safeguarding compares better than people expect.
The practical answer for most businesses is to know which one you have for each balance you hold, rather than to assume every account works the same way. Plenty of finance teams discover the distinction during an incident, which is the worst moment to learn it.
What we are, plainly
VIP360 matches businesses with licensed institutions rather than holding funds itself. Accounts and e-money in the group sit with Remittance360 Ltd, an FCA-authorised electronic money institution (FRN 901072), and payments run through MDRN FX Services Limited, an FCA-authorised payment institution (FRN 540997). Both are inside the mandatory safeguarding regime.
Neither is a bank, so balances held with them are safeguarded and not FSCS protected. We would rather write that sentence plainly here than have you find it in a footer later, and the firm reference numbers are there so you can check both on the FCA register without taking our word for any of it.