Dept Makes Contact With People Eligible For HSH Remedy Payments

Emails have begun to be sent to all those potentially eligible for a remedy payment under the High Street Scheme, the Department for the Economy has announced.

The Economy Minister recently agreed to issue a remedy payment to the following individuals:

• verified applicants who did not receive their Spend Local card before the Scheme closed;

• applicants who faced problems activating/using their card and as a result had a balance of £10 or more at Scheme closure.

The Department for the Economy recently emailed individuals to inform them that they, or a person they applied on behalf of, may be eligible for a remedy payment under the High Street Scheme. A further email providing a link to the remedy payment application portal is now being issued. Those who wish to apply for a remedy payment (either for themselves or on someone's behalf) should click on the link contained within the email where they will then be asked a security question in order to access the application form. Those who confirm they meet the eligibility criteria will then be asked to provide bank/building society details. The remedy payment will be paid into the nominated account before the end of April 2022. The remedy payment made will be equal to the balance remaining on the Spend Local card at scheme closure.

E-mails will issue from noreply@spendlocalni.com and messages from this address should be treated as legitimate. 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.

Applications must be submitted before 5pm on Thursday 31 March 2022. It will not be possible to process applications beyond this date.

Those who applied via the telephone service and who have been identified as being potentially eligible for a remedy payment will receive a letter next week with details on how to apply.