The organisation responsible for compensating savers if a bank or building society goes bust has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the financial cover it provides.
Deposits of up to £85,000 for single accounts and £170,000 for joint accounts are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) after the limit was recently increased from £50,000 to match a new European Economic Area compensation level of 100,000 euro.
The FSCS launched the multimillion-pound ad campaign after research found that only 3% of people knew of the organisation, compared with 9% in 2009 and 20% in January 2008, soon after the run on Northern Rock.
The group, which has made record payouts in the last few years, also found that 47% of people knew there was a compensation scheme but did not know it was implemented by the FSCS.
Its scheme covers savings in UK banks and subsidiaries of foreign banks which operate in the UK but does not cover deposits in UK branches of European banks, which are covered by the relevant compensation scheme in the country where the bank has its head office.
