Intervene for the purpose of compensation

When their bank or financial institution fails, customers lose access to their accounts, deposits, securities or the benefit of a performance bond by which they are protected.

The declaration of the failure is followed by the liquidation of the institution. The result is that customers have a claim against the liquidation in the amount of their funds that have become unavailable. 

Without the FGDR's intervention, they would only be able to recover any or all their funds after the total liquidation of all the institution's assets and after compensation is paid to the preferential creditors, based on a process that can last several years.

Instead, through the deposit guarantee, investor compensation and performance bonds guarantee schemes, the FGDR compensates them very quickly up to the maximum amount for each scheme: 

• €100,000 for current accounts, term accounts and savings accounts and schemes;
• €100,000 for regulated savings accounts (Livret type “A”, “LDDS”, “LEP”); 
• €70,000 for securities. 

Customers whose funds exceed these coverage limits become “creditors” of the liquidation for the amounts not compensated and may therefore be able to receive additional compensation at the end of the liquidation. 

In the event of compensation, the contact information of the liquidator i in charge of the proceeding is provided to customers. 
 

When a bank failure cannot be avoided, the FGDR compensates customers within a maximum of seven working days and up to an amount of €100,000. To this end, the FGDR has developed specific tools and processes together with member institutions. 

In the event of compensation, customers do not need to take any action. The FGDR invites them to log on to a secure compensation platform accessible from its website. Customers simply need to have an account at another bank where they can receive their compensation and transfer their other banking services and day-to-day transactions.
 

How is compensation provided within seven working days?

• All French banks must be able to send the “SCV file” (Single Customer i View), in a very specific format, to the FGDR within two days; this file contains all the data and information as of the date of the failure which the FGDR needs in order to provide compensation. The FGDR verifies banks’ ability to meet this requirement every year. 
• Once this banking data is uploaded, the FGDR has implemented processes and an innovative IT system, the CCS (Integrated Compensation and Communication System), which enable it to calculate the compensation amount payable to each of the bank’s customers. 
• In addition, the CCS has an electronic payment interface called the SCA, “Secure Compensation Area”, which allows customers to enter the details (IBAN) of a new bank account where they can receive their compensation quickly and securely. The SCA is a portal on which customers can view their compensation file and communicate with the FGDR via secure messaging.
• Customers who are unable or unwilling to use the SCA receive their compensation by cheque sent by registered post with acknowledgement of receipt.
   

The Integrated Compensation and Communication System (CCS) 

The FGDR’s CCS is designed to compensate all the depositors of any bank declared as having failed by the ACPR within a very short time period. 

Almost immediately, the FGDR collects all information from the failed bank enabling it to compensate customers, as well as the information needed to process complex cases: accounts with beneficiaries, undivided co-ownership accounts, account seizure orders, etc. 

This allows it to quickly open a Processing Centre for complex compensation cases, which searches for the additional information and supporting documents needed to finalise their compensation as soon as possible, usually by contacting customers directly.
 

The Secure Compensation Area (SCA) 

The Secure Compensation i Area (SCA) is a secure web portal designed specifically to pay compensation to customers of a failed bank under the deposit guarantee scheme. When a failure occurs and a compensation process is initiated, the FGDR opens this Secure Compensation i Area within no more than seven working days from the unavailability date of deposits on this website www.fonds-degarantie.com.

When the ACPR determines the unavailability of the securities and associated cash entrusted by customers to the bank or investment services firm and the institution's inability to fulfil its obligation to return or repay them, the FGDR intervenes to compensate the institution's customers. Compensation i is paid within three months, which may be extended once, up to a maximum amount of €70,000 for the securities and €70,000 for the associated cash (if the service provider is a bank, the cash associated with the securities is covered by the deposit guarantee scheme, along with other cash accounts, and is included in the €100,000 ceiling of that guarantee).
 

Reasons for initiation of the investor compensation scheme

• In most cases, securities disappear as a result of fraud or a computer malfunction and the information required for compensation is not necessarily available immediately. 
• The compensation process is therefore longer than for the deposit guarantee scheme: the FGDR must first conduct an investigation to determine exactly which securities have disappeared and to whose detriment, help customers recover those securities that are still available and pay compensation for the other securities.
   

Compensation process for the investor compensation scheme 

• Customers of the failed institution do not need to take any action other than have a bank account at another institution to receive their compensation and, where applicable, a securities account to recover those securities that are still available.
• The FGDR conducts the research and contacts customers, if necessary, to obtain additional information before providing compensation. In the meantime, it keeps customers informed of the situation through a press release or letter.

The procedure is initiated when the ACPR determines that a financial institution is unable to honour the performance bonds it has issued to business professionals in order to provide customers with a guarantee that the projects carried out for them by such professionals are properly completed.

When the financial institution fails, there is no impact on the business professionals or their customers. The FGDR simply replaces the institution and assumes the performance bond that it had issued. It is only if the business professional itself subsequently defaults that the FGDR intervenes to compensate customers in an amount capped at 90% of the harm sustained, with an excess of €3,000 payable by the customer.

Initiation of the performance bonds guarantee scheme

• When the financial institution fails, the performance bond will not need to be enforced if the business professional completes the project for which the bond was issued. 
• However, if the business professional itself fails, the FGDR acts in the same way as the original financial institution that issued the performance bond and compensates the customers. 
• The performance bonds guarantee takes effect on the date on which the ACPR notifies the FGDR of this determination, the so-called “intervention” date.
   

Compensation process for the performance bonds guarantee scheme

• The determination by the ACPR of a failure results in the assumption by or transfer to the FGDR of the performance bonds provided by the failed institution to business professionals in favour of their end customers.

• As a first step, the FGDR identifies the performance bonds issued by the failed institution to business professionals. Within two months, it informs these professionals of the procedure to follow and the documents to provide in order for the commitments to be assumed. This period may be extended once by two additional months.

• Then, if the covered professional defaults and the performance bond is called or has already been called but has not yet been honoured, the FGDR compensates the end customers.