Personal Savings

Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, firms must act to deliver good outcomes for retail customers throughout their relationship with the firm. This includes acting in good faith, avoiding causing foreseeable harm, and enabling and supporting consumers to pursue their financial objectives. As part of this work, the FCA has set out its expectations of firms in relation to gone-away or disengaged consumers. Banks must make best efforts to contact such customers, to ensure that they can continue to access their products, such as savings accounts.

In the event that banks are not able to contact their customers, and they deem that the account has become dormant, they may elect to transfer the proceeds to the Government’s Dormant Assets Scheme, but banks’ first priority is to reunite customers with their assets.

The Government does not hold data on the total value of unclaimed savings held by financial institutions in the UK. However, in 2017, the independent Commission on Dormant Assets estimated there to be £1–2 billion of dormant assets held across eligible financial services sectors, including the banking sector. Since the opening of the Dormant Assets Scheme in 2011, there has been over £2.13bn of dormant funds transferred from participating banks and building societies alone, as of 31^st March 2025.