Is money kept in the Minted App protected by FSCS?

How your money is protected with Minted

Minted are registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a Small Electronic Money Institution. As part of this registration, we are required to ensure that your money is safeguarded and protected at all times.

Safeguarding is really important to us – and to you. It’s not just something that we ‘have’ to do, it’s something that we ‘want’ to do. We’ve built Minted to be the trusted go-to gold provider and that’s not something we want to compromise.

We’re different to a Bank. In fact, we’re different to most! Because of that, we wanted to give you a bit more of an overview and understanding as to what this means…

What is safeguarding?

Safeguarding is an obligation placed on Minted to ensure that any of your funds that we hold as ‘electronic money’ is held separately from our own business funds.

‘Electronic money’, or ‘e-money’ are the funds that you can see in your wallet when you log in, which you can use at any time to either buy gold or withdraw to your own account. We are required to safeguard these funds from the very moment they reach us, until the time that you decide to purchase gold or withdraw it. No exceptions.

Where are they safeguarded?

We place your funds into a separate client account held with a separate Tier 1 bank entirely separate from our own money. That means it’s one of the bigger banks, with the least chance of failure. The client account is clearly named as such, so if either we or the bank went bust, the funds can’t be touched. They remain the property of you, and rightly so.

What if Minted went out of business?

We’re not planning on going anywhere. In fact, we move from strength to strength! However, if the worst did happen then a liquidator would be appointed to take control of the business, sell the assets and distribute the proceeds to its creditors.

As part of this process, they would reconcile the funds that we hold in our client account which belong to you, and would return those funds to you, less any costs associated with the liquidation.

Does that mean I’ll get all my money back immediately?

It’s likely that you’ll receive every penny back – however as the liquidator deducts their costs from these funds, there is a risk that you will receive less back than what we are currently holding on your behalf.

Also, given that liquidators need to follow a strict process, there’s also the risk that you won’t receive these funds back immediately or automatically, and there may be a slight delay whilst the liquidators do what they need to do.

Are my funds FSCS protected?

Your funds held with Minted are not covered under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) as we’re not under the scope of the FSCS.

In very simple terms, if your bank were to fail, the FSCS guarantees that you will receive your money back almost immediately – with a maximum coverage of £85,000. Any more than that, and there’s a chance you won’t get it back.

However, as we’re an Electronic Money Institution we’re required to safeguard the entire value of your funds, regardless of the amount, even where this is above £85,000.

So that means that Minted are safer than a bank?

An Electronic Money Institution is neither safer, or riskier, than a bank. There’s key differences between the FSCS and safeguarding which we want to ensure that you’re aware of, and what we’re hoping this has explained.

Whilst the FSCS is capped at £85,000, safeguarding is effectively unlimited. However, the FSCS will repay funds automatically, whereas returning safeguarded funds may be delayed, and may have costs deducted from the liquidators. There’s no ‘better’ method, each has it’s pros and cons.

Should I be worried?

No. Minted continue to move from strength to strength and we’re not planning on going anywhere. We also ensure that we safeguard your funds correctly, as we’re obligated to do. Your funds are safe with us, and like the gold that we hold, we keep it under lock and key.

What about Physical Gold?

Whilst not captured under the FCA’s safeguarding requirements, your physical gold always remains protected, too! We’re planning on being around for a very long time. However, should the worst ever happen, and the company goes into administration, your gold is safe. When you buy gold with Minted, you own the gold outright and we are just custodians buying on your behalf.

Your gold is off the company balance sheets and is safe from the risk of being seized as part of the administration process where the appointed firm will then be involved in ensuring that your gold is rightfully returned to you.