Ease the squeeze by searching for a lost account

The one-stop account tracing website, mylostaccount.org.uk, has been up and running since January, since when over 140,000 people have searched for funds that may be lying in forgotten accounts.

The site brings together account search facilities from the British Bankers’ Association, the Building Societies Association and National Savings and Investments (NS&I).

The launch of the new facility is being seen as a huge success because it has inspired 140,000 individuals to look for forgotten accounts, which compares with the 44,000 who made enquiries via the three independent schemes last year.

The service, which is free, is encouraging 760 people a day to check whether any of the estimated £1 billion lying in UK dormant accounts is rightfully theirs.

NS&I says it has dealt with over 25,000 successful traces and reunited customers with over £41 million.

Activity among account searchers is at its highest in the North West and South of England and people in the Home Counties been most successful with regard to NS&I accounts.

In related news, HSBC announced earlier this week that it is renewing its efforts to contact customers with dormant current accounts.

The banks says it has £24 million in accounts that have seen no customer initiated activity for 15 years or more.

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