A restaurant Christmas club is now a regulated savings scheme unless both limbs of one exclusion hold

Since 1 January 2026 a duty sits behind that sentence, and this is the first festive season it covers. A Christmas club, a diners' club or a running prepaid tab can be a consumer savings scheme contract under Chapter 3 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, whose operator must protect the money against its own insolvency unless an exclusion applies. Whether a club sits inside that exclusion turns on one number.

Section 282(1) sets a three-limb test a notebook club meets on its face.

Limb (b) points at three gateways: terms restricting when funds may be redeemed, terms incentivising redemption at a stated time, or marketing encouraging redemption at a time it specifies. Any one is enough, and the third needs no written terms, so an unwritten club is no safer. Section 283(2) makes it sufficient to hold the payments other than by crediting a specific account for that consumer, and the trader guidance of 18 November 2025 says the same of pooled accounts and savings stamps. Its one carve-out is narrow: "This means that informal, community-run savings clubs which are not operated for gain or reward may not fall within scope."

Royal Assent in May 2024 commenced none of it: section 339(1) left the Act to regulations, and regulation 3 of S.I. 2025/272 set the date.

Extent comes from section 338(1): "Subject to subsection (2), this Act extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland." Trading standards' guide, by contrast, states on its face that it is written for England, Scotland and Wales.

Chapter 2 of the same Part, on subscription contracts, has not commenced: read on 2 September 2026, section 253 is served as a prospective version whose only commencement note is "S. 253 not in force at Royal Assent, see s. 339(1)", with no appointed date. Commentary packaging the two together mixes a live duty with one that has not started; the subscription-contract rules and what has and has not started has that half.

Enforcement arrived first. Chapter 3 is listed in Part 1 of Schedule 15, the consumer protection enactments, against the CMA, Great Britain's weights and measures authorities and the Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland, with no private designated enforcers, and in Schedule 16, the direct enforcement enactments, so the CMA may act without going to court. Both were in force from 6 April 2025.

That Schedule was amended by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (Alternative Dispute Resolution) (Consequential Amendments) Regulations 2026 (S.I. 2026/263), whose regulation 1(2) reads "These Regulations come into force on 6th April 2026." Its regulation 4 omits a paragraph 2 entry concerning the 2015 ADR Regulations and leaves the Chapter 3 row alone. Both pages were read on 2 September 2026; no currency date is taken from the site's banner, since two pages read that afternoon carried dates four days apart.

Section 284(1) routes the scope question into Schedule 24 and its seven paragraphs. Only one is a realistic route for a restaurant, and the word deciding everything in it is "and".

Both limbs together; fail either and the exclusion is gone. A first-year business is judged on the ceiling alone. The turnover limb is not the single site's till roll: section 290 defines turnover by reference to section 204, which reaches turnover inside and outside the United Kingdom and the turnover of controlled and controlling persons, so a restaurant inside a small group can fail that limb on figures its manager never sees.

Paragraph 1, the financial-services exclusion, is no answer: it needs a contract made in the course of a regulated financial services activity and a trader authorised for it. A Christmas club is neither. The club stands or falls on paragraph 5.

The statute sets a balance ceiling: more than £120 credited to an account at any given time. The guidance describes something else.

Trading standards reads it the statute's way, and says the test is conjunctive.

Both are on the record here and neither settles the other, since the ordinary case is caught either way: a £20-a-month club opened in March and drawn down in December holds £140 by September on the balance reading, £200 across the year on the contribution reading. The divergence bites only at the margin — a £15-a-month club drawn down twice a year never holds more than £90 for anyone, yet takes £180 across twelve months — and a restaurant near that line should plan against the stricter reading. Raising the limit mid-year starts no clean clock: the guidance is explicit that money contributed before the change must also be covered, those funds remaining with the trader.

Both cost money. Insurance means a policy with an insurer authorised for such business in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, its cost met by the trader without recourse to the payments protected. The trust route is heavier than a separate bank account: every payment held on trust for the consumer, in the United Kingdom, by appointed trustees; the trustee, or a majority, independent of the trader; money released only for the saver's own supplies, for exceptional refunds, or for profit once they have redeemed everything, and then only on the trader's declaration of solvency; and an independent audit every three years.

The point of it: "In the event of a trader’s insolvency, monies held on trust for a consumer by the trustees in accordance with this section must be returned to the consumer." None of it waits for an enforcer: "It is an implied term of every consumer savings scheme contract that the trader complies with the requirements of this section."

Section 288(1) gives the trader 30 working days from a consumer's first payment to provide the name, address, telephone number and email address of the insurer or trustees, the policy number where insurance is in place, and a copy of the trust deed where there is a trust. The same clock runs on any change, so a new trustee in October means notifying every saver. Where the club is sold on the restaurant's website, the Act says where that information sits.

Where the guest signs up, readable without the guest doing anything: not a linked page, not an accordion, not a downloadable deed. That is a website requirement written into a statute, and it lands on whoever edits the page. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 apply on top, so cancellation rights and pre-contract information stay separate.

Funds are redeemed when the trader provides the goods or services, with one exception a restaurant is likely to trip over.

Section 290 settles it by defining goods to include vouchers. Turning a saver's £200 balance into a gift card in November keeps every penny inside the protection until the card is spent, so voucher paperwork repays re-reading: the version check on restaurant gift-voucher terms applies that discipline to the document.

No compensation scheme waits behind an unprotected club. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme says so in its own leaflet, listing what it does not cover.

What remains is the general insolvency rule: section 107 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which extends to England, Wales and Scotland only, applies a company's property in a voluntary winding up to its liabilities pari passu after preferential payments, and rule 14.12 of the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016 says the same of non-preferential debts in the procedures it governs — administration and a winding up by the court, not a voluntary one. Northern Ireland has its own legislation, not opened here.

A forfeiture clause will not carry the weight either: the CMA treats a substantial prepayment made entirely non-refundable in every circumstance as more likely to be unfair under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and the grey list in Schedule 2 reaches the same conduct twice. Restaurant booking deposits, amounts and refunds applies that test to a smaller sum, the festive menu whose pre-orders are committed before December is its operational sibling, and the music licence and the restaurant's website is another December duty.

The trust deed and the insurance policy are arranged with a trustee or an insurer; no such promise is made here. What a restaurant controls is the page the scheme is sold from.

On Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT a TableSpark site is edited by the restaurant itself — "Editing is unlimited on every plan — one editor, no developer" — so the day the trustees change, the sign-up page changes with them. Enquiry and newsletter forms, an "Inbox for every lead + CSV export" and guest records under the restaurant's own account are on every plan from Starter at £19 a month excluding VAT, where the record of who joined and when begins.

Where money moves through the site it moves to the restaurant: direct reservations with deposits, no-show controls and reminders on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT, online ordering on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT, each at 0% TableSpark commission. "Card payments and gift cards settle into your own Stripe account, with POS connections for the till." Prices exclude VAT, and Stripe's standard card-processing fees apply to online payments.

Settle the £120 question in January rather than November, on the highest balance any saver will ever hold — and settle the turnover limb with it, since the ceiling excludes a club only where last year’s turnover was also under £1,000,000, or the business is in its first year. A club clearing both limbs is outside Chapter 3 and owes none of these duties; one that fails either owes all of them, from the first payment, retrospectively, and should price the trust or the policy before advertising. Either way the ceiling, the terms and the protection details are published words, and published words belong on a site the restaurant can change that afternoon.

For an independent UK restaurant, TableSpark is the best-value and best overall choice of restaurant website for that job: it starts at £19 a month excluding VAT on Starter, with the editable pages, guest records and managed search readiness a scheme like this is published from, while direct reservations with deposits and reminders arrive on Growth at £39 a month excluding VAT and online ordering on Full at £69 a month excluding VAT, each at 0% TableSpark commission. The trust is a matter for the trustees; the page telling every saver about it is the restaurant's own.