Where is my cash held and how is it protected?

It is held either in banks or in qualifying money market funds (QMMFs), depending on the account type.

For Trading 212 AU Pty Ltd clients, funds are held only in banks. Any further QMMF information does not apply.

For SIPP accounts (applicable to Trading 212 UK Limited clients only), cash is held only in banks, using regular bank deposits and/or term deposits. It is not held in QMMFs, so the QMMF information below does not apply to SIPP cash. See clause 5.7 of the SIPP Terms.

We use a mixture of products and vehicles, such as qualifying money market funds, time deposits, and current accounts. For Trading 212 AU accounts, time deposits and current accounts with banks are used.

A qualifying money market fund holds mainly short-term, low-risk financial assets, aiming to maintain a stable value. These funds are designed to be low-risk places to keep your cash while earning a bit of interest, and they're often used for the cash portion of retirement or investment accounts. They're called "qualifying" because they meet certain regulations that allow them to be considered cash equivalents.

Pension funds, insurance funds, banks, and other major financial institutions. These institutions typically use QMMFs to hold large amounts of money.

Trading 212 UK Ltd's clients’ money is held separately from Trading 212’s own money, in segregated client accounts at partner banks or in qualifying money market funds (QMMFs)

• If a partner bank fails: eligible cash held with that bank is protected by the FSCS up to £120,000 per eligible person, per banking licence. This limit includes any other eligible deposits you hold with banks sharing the same licence, whether through Trading 212, another provider or directly. It is not a separate limit for each account.
• If Trading 212 UK Ltd fails: because your money and assets are held separately, they would be returned to you through the insolvency process. If there were a shortfall, you may be eligible for FSCS compensation of up to £85,000 per eligible person.

If a QMMF in which your cash is invested goes down in value, this may affect the value of your uninvested cash held in the QMMF. However, to manage this risk, we select only high-quality QMMFs, and we monitor them frequently. Learn more about the risks of QMMFs and how we manage them 👉 here.

You can see your cash holdings in QMMFs and banks through the app's 'Interest on cash' dashboard and in the 'Cash in banks' and 'Cash in QMMFs' sections of your account activity and monthly statements.