Card security product holders: compensation scheme now closed

Card security product holders were able to claim compensation over potential selling issues, but the deadline for claiming compensation has now passed and no further compensation claim forms will be accepted.

Compensation scheme results

By 20 April 2016, the scheme administrators paid £108.2m of compensation to 533,000 claimants, an average of £203 per claim. This represents a rate of 28.5% of all potential claims based on the total amount of compensation claimed (or 26.8% based on the total number of upheld claims).

No claims submitted before the 18 March 2016 deadline was rejected, 2,508 compensation claims received after the 18 March 2016 deadline were rejected and 189 claim outcomes have been disputed.

Holders of the following products were able to apply:

  • Card Protection
  • Sentinel
  • Sentinel Gold
  • Sentinel Protection
  • Sentinel Excel
  • Safe and Secure Plus

If you received a letter and compensation claim form from AI Scheme Limited and you wanted to claim compensation, you had to submit the claim form to the AI Scheme Administrators by 18 March 2016.

You can see a list of the banks and credit card issuers that have agreed to this compensation scheme below.

Why card security product holders were entitled to compensation

One of the features of the card security products was insurance to cover fraudulent use if a card was lost or stolen. This was in certain respects unnecessary because the customer’s bank or card issuer was typically responsible for any transactions after the cards were reported as lost or stolen and, before reporting the matter, customers were only liable for unauthorised transactions in limited circumstances.

The bank or card issuer usually covered customers for anything over the first £50 if transactions took place before the card was reported missing. The AI Scheme was designed to deal with any other concerns that product holders may have with the way in which a card security product was sold to them.

The AI Scheme is now closed to new claims and no new claims will be accepted. You can find out more about the compensation scheme and see answers to some frequently asked questions on the AI Scheme website. If you need further information about the scheme, you should contact the AI Scheme on their freephone number 0800 678 1930 (from outside the UK dial +44 208 475 3103, calls to this number may incur a charge).

Banks and credit card issuers in the scheme

  • AIB Group (UK) Plc trading as First Trust Bank in Northern Ireland and Allied Irish Bank (GB) in Great Britain
  • Barclays Bank Plc
  • Capital One (Europe) Plc
  • Clydesdale Bank PLC
  • HSBC Bank plc
  • Lloyds Bank Plc
  • Northern Bank Limited trading as Danske Bank
  • Santander UK plc
  • Tesco Personal Finance plc
  • The Co-operative Bank Plc
  • The Royal Bank of Scotland plc