Juni, as an e-money institution (EMI), protects your money through “safeguarding”, which differs from how your money is protected by a bank. Juni is not a bank but an e-money institution, authorised from Swedish regulator Finansinspektionen.
How is your e-money protected at Juni?
“Safeguarding” is a set of laws that defines how an e-money institution must protect your money. These rules are designed to ensure that if the e-money institution fails, your money will have been kept in a safe place and be paid back to you. For safeguarding to protect you, the e-money institution must follow these rules. That’s why you should only use an e-money institution that you trust.
To explain in more detail: once an e-money institution receives your money, it must either place it in a dedicated "safeguarding account" with a bank, or invest it in low risk assets that have been approved by the regulator as an alternative to cash. Sometimes, less commonly, it may protect the money with an insurance policy instead. Your money must stay in these accounts or investments until you spend it.
The protection this provides means that if an e-money institution fails, there should be a pot of money (the safeguarding account) sufficient to pay all customers the money they are owed. These safeguarding accounts are protected by law from other creditors of a failed e-money institution making a claim against them. The only thing that can be paid from these safeguarding accounts, before the customers are paid back their e-money, is the cost of the receiver (the person who’s appointed to manage the closure of a failed company).
How is safeguarding different from the FSCS or DGS protection given by banks?
When you keep money with an e-money institution, it's safeguarded instead of having FSCS or DGS protection (sometimes called “deposit insurance”).
The main difference between FSCS/DGS protection and safeguarding is that FSCS/DGS protection is covered by an independent statutory organisation, while safeguarding protection is provided by the e-money institution itself. If a FSCS/DGS protected firm were to fail, this independent organisation is legally obliged to pay back their funds to eligible customers up to the maximum compensation amount. This will happen whether or not the FSCS/DGS protected firm actually has that money itself. This payout will normally happen within seven days.
If an e-money institution (like Juni) fails, the customers’ claims will be paid from the safeguarding account. This is because the e-money institution cannot lend the money it has received from one person to another, so the funds in its safeguarding accounts cover its debts to its customers. This is required by law.
So, in accordance with the safeguarding laws, if an e-money institution goes out of business, customers should in principle get their money back. However, the payout could take longer than it would with a bank.
See Juni’s Swedish e-money licence here.