Dormant accounts caused by "more complicated" banking

Wed 8 Aug 2007 5pm

The increasingly complex financial lives of Britons today have contributed to the upswing in dormant accounts, a money charity said today.

A total of £15.6 billion lies unclaimed in the accounts - defined as those which have been left untouched for over 15 years - in statistics from the Unclaimed Assets Register.

Chris Tapp, a deputy director from Credit Action, said that "banking has become so much more complicated, we do all have more than one bank account. That often leads to confusion for people in a whole host of ways.

"It could be that this is symptomatic of that, that people aren't as organised as we think they should be in terms of keeping control of their finances."

He added that a dormant account generally occurs "when there's a change of circumstance: if somebody moves home, particularly if they move abroad. In the confusion of those changing circumstances, people just forget - it's almost as simple as that."

Traumatic events such as family bereavements were also cited by Mr Tapp as being a factor behind the accounts "slipping the net", and becoming dormant.

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