Update on remedy measures for High Street Scheme

The Department for the Economy has issued around 22.5k emails to verified applicants who may be eligible for a remedy payment in relation to the High Street Scheme.

People eligible for a payment include those who fall into one of the following categories:

• the application was verified but the card was not received
• the card was received but could not be activated
• the card was received but the full balance could not be spent for reasons outside the card holder’s control and there remains a balance of £10 or more on the card at Scheme closure
• the individual, or the person they applied on behalf of, were not verified due to a service failure on the part of the Department.

Spend Local card emails will be issued from noreply@spendlocalni.com  and messages from this address should be treated as legitimate.

The email, which will contain the name of the person potentially eligible for the remedy payment, will be sent to the email address provided on the original application.  In some cases, this will be a person who applied on behalf of someone else and it is important that the person receiving the email lets the eligible applicant know. A letter will be sent to those who applied via the telephone service, but did not supply an email address giving details on how to apply for a remedy payment.

The Department will not be asking for personal details and no further action is required at this stage. A further email will issue in mid-March providing details on how to apply for payment and containing a link to the remedy application portal.

Depending on the settings of a person’s email account, it is possible these emails may be filtered into a junk/spam folder, so people are asked to check these folders regularly.

Anyone who qualifies for a remedy payment will receive an amount equal to the balance on the Spend Local card when the Scheme closed.

It is anticipated that these payments will be made in late March/early April 2022.

Notes to editors: 

1. The High Street Scheme closed at midnight on December 19 2021.  It re-opened on 24 December 2021 for a 2 week period for a limited number of individuals. Nearly 1.4 million people received a pre-paid £100 Spend Local cards delivering a much-needed boost – in the region of £136.5million – to the local economy.
2. For those that are eligible, a remedy payment, equal to the balance on the card will be made via a BACs payment. The cost of remedy payments is estimated to be in the region of £1 million- £1.5 million.
3. To keep up to date with news from the Department you can follow us on the following social media channels:
   Twitter – @Economy_NI
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4. For media enquiries contact the Department for the Economy Press Office at pressoffice@economy-ni.gov.uk

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