Bank collapse was once easy to dismiss, then the credit crunch and global market turmoil hit. The UK soon found itself bailing out Northern Rock, and the US authorities followed for even bigger bank Bear Stearns. This means these days every sensible saver should ask “is my money safe?.

The answer is quite simple. Provided your money is in a UK regulated bank or building society account, it's protected under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) and its golden rule counts for ISAs too...

The first £50,000 per person, per financial institution is guaranteed.

Sadly this is the simple face of savings safety; the exact rules are more complex involving how different banks are registered and what counts as a financial institution.

How to maximise safety

Unless you've done very well in terms of earning interest, any cash ISA balance is unlikely to top this £50,000 limit, so there's likely to be no problem. Yet if you have further savings in other accounts with the same bank or building society, then in the unlikely even that it went bust only the first £50,000 in fully guaranteed, so for total peace of mind don't put more than this in any one institution; spread it around.

For those with very large amounts of savings (for example a house sale) this could lead to lots of accounts, even if you've too much to stick to the £50,000 limit for each one, the general rule of not having all your eggs in one basket still works.

This guide and best buys

It's impossible to pick "which bank is in trouble?", we've seen great names of world banking like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch in trouble. Therefore the only solution for this site is that we'll report the top rates regardless, alongside explaining any 'protection oddities'. So far, world governments have reacted to protect their banks and no savers have lost money, and its likely (though not certain) that will continue.