Is it safe to keep my funds in my 3S Money business bank account?
At 3S Money, we believe you should feel absolutely confident about the security of the funds in your business bank account. As an Electronic Money Institution regulated by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), we retain 100% liquidity and safeguard client funds by keeping them separate from our own operational funds in our correspondent banks: Raiffeisen Bank International, Banking Circle Luxembourg & Banking Circle Denmark, JP Morgan Chase & Co UK, and Clearbank. Discover more about how we protect our clients' money below. Ready to get started? Check your eligibility today.
Your security is crucial to us at 3S Money. We want you to feel safe when storing funds in our International Business Account, or using it to make international payments. Learn more about how we do this, from the financial protection schemes we’re part of, to how we’re regulated and safeguard your money.
What’s a financial protection scheme?
Financial institutions such as UK-authorised banks, building societies and credit unions are legally required to participate in financial protection schemes such as the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).
This is due to the fact that banks lend out money that is deposited by their customers, making profits on their investments. If a large number of borrowers are unable to repay their loans, then a bank may become insolvent and be unable to return customer funds. This is why the government makes them insure their deposits via FSCS — in case something goes wrong.
The FSCS is legally obliged to pay back customer funds to eligible customers up to the maximum compensation to the value of up to 85,000 GBP, or 170,000 GBP for joint accounts.
3S Money is regulated under an EMI license by the FCA. (Unsure what an EMI is? Learn about them here.) However, we do not protect your money under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). We’re different from the institutions listed above because we do not lend out money deposited by our clients. Instead, we safeguard our clients' money just in case anything were to happen to us.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding is used by Payment Institutions and E-Money Issuers (PIs and EMIs) to protect funds they hold on behalf of their clients in the event they were to go into liquidation.
This simply means that, by law, we must keep all your funds in accounts that are separate from 3S Money operational funds. In the event that something were to happen to 3S Money, your funds are safe and protected. This is officially called ‘safeguarding of funds’.
Where is my money held?
We have correspondent banks all over the UK and Europe, we hold your funds in; Raiffeisen Bank International Austria, Banking Circle and Crown Agents Bank UK.
We safeguard your funds at different financial institutions in order to reduce concentration risk. We assess the creditworthiness of all our safeguarding partners and ensure that no single partner safeguards all our customer funds.
If the banks where we safeguard your money were to become insolvent, then we wouldn’t be able to guarantee the return of all of your money. However, we carry out regular reviews of these banks to ensure that they remain low risk. We would change banks if we saw any issues.
Who is 3S Money regulated by?
3S Money is regulated by the FCA, meaning we follow a strict set of rules set out by the agency which protects your business and the market in which we operate.
We always act with complete transparency and honestly, with our clients at the heart of everything we do. Our regulators monitor us to make sure what we say and do is in line with their regulatory standards — so that we operate in accordance with our licenses.
First published 07/12/2021
Last updated on 26/04/2023