Why are payments made by warrant?

A warrant works like a cheque. It is one of HM Government's standard methods of payment, and NS&I currently sends out over 13 million payments by warrant every year. The Scheme has chosen warrants for making payments to policyholders for reasons of efficiency and security. On receiving a warrant by post, you should pay it into your bank within 3 months, as you would a cheque.

The Scheme is unable to pay £ sterling AWP and CWP policyholders by bank transfer, as they are one-off payments. The Scheme would need to collect your bank details to achieve this, which would add to administration costs and risk potential delays to the way all payments are made across the Scheme. The Scheme has chosen the most cost effective way to make all the payments as quickly as possible.

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