What protection schemes are there for my investments?

European investor protection scheme

Once your money is invested with NNEK through Curvo's app, your assets are protected up to €20,000 by the European investor protection scheme.

You can find more information about this protection scheme on the website of De Nederlandsche Bank (Dutch central bank).

What about the European deposit guarantee?

The €100,000 deposit guarantee holds for the money that you hold on a savings accounts at a bank, whereas the investor protection scheme is for assets (funds, stocks, bonds, etc...) held by an investment firm or a broker. There's a key difference between banks and investment firms: investment firms are obliged to separate the assets of the customers from the company's assets. This means that your assets are not affected when an investment firm goes bankrupt.

Banks don't have that requirement. The money that you have on a savings account appears directly on the balance sheet of the bank. This means that when the bank goes down, so does your money. And this is one of the main reasons why the deposit guarantee was put in place: to protect Europeans citizens when their bank fails. We've clearly seen in 2008 how important the guarantee was!

In contrast, the investor protection scheme does not protect against bankruptcy of an investment firm. But that's because it doesn't have to. The laws regulating investment firms and brokers oblige them to separate the clients' assets from their own. So unlike a bank, the bankruptcy of an investment firm will never affect your assets as a customer.

Updated on: 30/07/2023