Building Societies Investor Protection Scheme

A scheme set up to give limited protection to people with share and/or deposit accounts in authorised building societies that fail. Building societies are regulated and supervised by the Financial Services Authority and the Investor Protection Scheme was replaced by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in December 2001. In the case of an authorised building society being wound up there is a provision to pay compensation of 90% of a person's shares and/or deposits up to a set maximum.