NS&I launches campaign to reunite savers with forgotten accounts

NS&I (National Savings and Investments) has for the first time launched an advertising campaign to promote its free of charge Tracing Service to encourage savers to come forward to reclaim the £435 million in lost and forgotten accounts.

NS&I says the most common reason people lose track of their accounts is due to them moving home without passing on their address to NS&I and often due to forgetting about accounts opened for them as a child. Also unless executors are aware that a deceased person has NS& I products the money may become forgotten.

NS&I launched its Tracing Service in November 2001 and 43,000 people have already been reunited with £42 million. NS&I wants more of its savers to use the service to reunite themselves with any savings accounts they may have. There is no time limit on making a claim.

The advertising will direct NS&I savers to the website (nsandi.com) where Tracing Service information and application forms are available. Forms can also be requested if savers contact NS& I on 0845 964 5000.

The Tracing Service form needs to be completed in as much detail as possible, including any previous names or addresses, and returned to NS&I. The customer will be contacted once the trace has been completed, usually within one month.

British Bankers' Association and Building Societies' Association

The BBA and the BSA also provide completely free tracing services enabling customers to locate their lost or forgotten funds. Details can be found through the BBA web-site at bba.org.ukor by calling 020 7216 8909, and details about the BSA scheme can be found at bsa.org.uk.

Dormant NS&I accounts

The financial services industry and the government have settled on the definition of a dormant account as: "Current and deposit accounts where there has been no customer-initiated activity for at least 15 years." Under this definition NS& I, which formed 146 years ago in 1861, holds £435 million in dormant savings accounts. The main accounts are:

Post Office Savings Account (1861 - 1969)

The Post Office Savings Account was the original passbook account that was opened when NS& I was first formed. It was renamed as the Ordinary Account (see below) in 1969 when NS& I (then called National Savings) split from the Post Office®.

Ordinary Account (1969 -2004)

This passbook account was closed in 2004 and alongside the Post Office Savings Account holds £196 million in funds (where there has been no activity for 15 years or more).

From April 2007 to June 2007 NS&I has received 196 passbooks which have had to be converted to decimal (all pre 1971), of these the oldest was opened in 1924.

Investment Account (1966 to date)

This passbook account is still being used by savers today, however, 450,000 accounts with £239 million invested have not been used in the past 15 years.

NS& I's Tracing Service can also be used to trace other NS& I lost or forgotten products, for example, Savings Certificates, Income Bonds and closed products such as Deposit Bonds.

Peter Cornish, NS& I Customer Director, said, "We want to help re-unite as many people as possible with savings they have forgotten they had invested with NS& I, or as we were formerly known, National Savings. We have launched an advertising campaign to jog as many memories as possible and the service is completely free-of-charge."