Bank Services
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how much money is held in dormant bank accounts, broken down by (a) bank and (b) region.
Answered by Emma Reynolds
HMT does not hold information on the level of dormant assets across UK bank accounts as this would be client information held by the banks themselves.
However, the Government does have information on the level of funds pertaining to the UK’s official Dormant Assets Scheme. The Dormant Assets scheme – legislated for in 2008, and updated in 2022 – creates a voluntary mechanism for taking dormant funds transferred from the financial sector to spend on charitable causes. The scheme was designed as a public/private partnership. The transferred funds come largely from the UK’s banking and building society sectors and are administered by a body called Reclaim Fund Limited (RFL).
Total transfers into the scheme since inception, from across the financial services sector, was £1.98bn as of March 2024. Of this total, £241m was transferred to the scheme in the financial year 2023/2024 alone, of which £219m came from the banking and building societies sectors, demonstrating the large amount of Dormant Assets held by these institutions.
There are currently 36 banks and building societies participating in the Dormant Assets Scheme, including many large banks.
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