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Dormant bank accounts ‘worth £2.8bn’

Your Money
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Your Money
Posted:
Updated:
11/12/2006

Recent research by Experian, the financial information company, has revealed that UK current accounts that have not been used in recent times may be worth up to £2.8bn.

Of these UK current accounts, around 20% of the account holders said they would be using them again and 12% had deliberately left them to accumulate interest. However, around 26% of inactive UK current accounts holders simply did not know how to get back in touch with their funds.

The research was carried out on behalf of the Unclaimed Assets Registrar (UAR), which is a division of Experian, and was published in the week the Chancellor made reference to dormant UK current accounts in his pre-Budget speech,

Managing director of UAR, Keith Hollender, said: “The survey shows that around £2.8bn-worth of dormant UK current accounts belong to people who are alive. However, the figure does not include people who have died and may have left inactive accounts. The addition of these accounts can be no more than a guess, but it is likely that the total would be far greater.”

Two-thirds of the population support the idea that unclaimed funds from UK current accounts should be used for charitable purposes, as long as the true owners can still claim their money if they wish.


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