How is your money protected?

Cornerstone Payment Solutions (Trading as Cornerstone) is not a bank.

Cornerstone is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Electronic Money Institution (EMI)

One of the main differences between a bank and Cornerstone is that banks are allowed to lend out and pay interest on their customers’ funds, whereas Cornerstone is not permitted to do this. 

Cornerstone cannot use your funds for our own business or to lend to other customers. Instead, Cornerstone is required to protect all your funds through a process known as Safeguarding.

How Cornerstone protects your money - Safeguarding

Safeguarding means that the funds we receive from you will be held in segregated bank account(s) separately from our own funds, in accordance with the Electronic Money Regulations.

Safeguarding protects you because, in the unlikely event of Cornerstone’s insolvency, the money in these accounts would be used to pay out you and our other customers. However, you need to be aware that under this scenario, it could take longer for monies to be refunded than if it was in a bank, and as some costs could be deducted by the administrator or liquidator of Cornerstone, you might not get all your money back.

Funds that are not deemed relevant for Safeguarding purposes include the following:

  • Deposits for forward contracts, until they are released into the client’s wallet following the forward contract being settled.
  • Margin calls on forward contracts until they are released into the client’s wallet following the forward contract being settled.
  • Unclaimed or unknown funds – where funds come in with no client reference, and despite reasonable efforts we cannot allocate them to a client wallet

Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)

Another main difference between a bank and Cornerstone is that the government provides protection to bank customers of up to £85,000 if the bank was to fail while holding their deposit. This is known as the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

Cornerstone as an Electronic Money Institution isn’t covered by FSCS.

Although Cornerstone is not covered by the FSCS, it is legally required to safeguard your money and does not lend it out to other customers, as banks do.