A quarter of a million searches online for lost accounts

The lost account tracing website, mylostaccount.org.uk, celebrates its first birthday this week (30 January) after a successful year. Since its launch, almost a quarter of a million people initiated online traces for possible forgotten funds.

Mylostaccount.org.uk is a unique site designed to make searching for lost accounts easier than ever. It is a one-stop shop covering the UK's bank and building societies as well as all NS&I (National Savings and Investments) accounts. The site covers most of the UK firms that offer savings and current accounts - so for anyone needing to trace a lost account, this is the place to start!

Statistics issued from the British Bankers' Association (BBA), Building Societies Association and NS&I reveal that the first year of mylostaccount.org.uk has exceeded all expectations. The free website has averaged over 680 claims per day since its launch, compared with 120 per day in 2007 via the BBA's, BSA's and NS&I's own tracing services prior to the launch of mylostaccount.org.uk.

Angela Knight, Chief Executive of the BBA, said "When we launched mylostaccount we hoped it would reunite record numbers of people with their money and it has more than surpassed our expectations. In the UK we use the web routinely to research our family histories: in the past year mylostaccount has helped us to trace our own financial histories too, sometimes with very profitable results. We hope our second year will be every bit as successful for bank customers as the first."

Adrian Coles, Director-General of the BSA, said "We would urge any savers who think they have a savings account, but have lost touch with it, to use mylostaccount to track it down. Building societies take the issue of tracing their lost savers very seriously and have been actively trying to reunite as many savers as possible with their money. In the first nine months of 2008, 43,000 accounts were reunited with their owners through societies' individual efforts and consumers using mylostaccount, representing around £18 million in reunited funds."

John Prout, Director of Sales at NS&I said "The mylostaccount website has had an extraordinary first year of success - NS&I alone has reunited more than £86 million with our customers through the site and we are delighted with the result. But we want to build on that success and encourage anyone who thinks they may have money lying unclaimed to initiate a trace through the site."

Lost money

Recent research confirms that more than one in ten people think they have forgotten funds, although 60% of them are yet to act on this. Half lost track of their money as they found it difficult to remember all of the accounts they had opened over the years - perhaps unsurprising as over a fifth (21%) of the population have over four different financial providers.

In addition, more than a third (37%) of those who have lost track of funds have failed to let their financial providers know that they had changed address. Others think that they were never aware of, or never took full notice of, money they were given as a child leading them to simply forget its existence.

In the United Kingdom, customers in the North West filed the largest percentage of claims through the website, notching up almost 35,000 of the total claims. And it was people in the Home Counties who had had the most success with their traces and the value of funds reunited from NS&I accounts.

With over £850 million still lying unclaimed in dormant bank, building society and NS&I accounts there is still a long way to go in reuniting lost funds. A visit to mylostaccount.org.uk could well be worth the effort.